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There’s a distinction between making art and having an art practice.
Making art is the actual act of putting pencil to paper, brush to canvas, or chisel to stone.
An art practice is all the stuff behind and around the finished piece you might see on a wall or pedestal. It’s hours of research, doodling, reading, thinking, experimenting, and talking over drinks with fellow artists.
It’s sort of a way of life.
What I’ve discovered is that my artistic practice includes something even more involved: travel.
Art Supplies vs. Clothes
As I wrote in my last blog post, Atlas Takes Me Places—Literally the historical research behind my art has led me to travel to places where my ancestors lived and died, explore, and make drawings. I started with a several local areas, and now I’ve just completed my first extended trip, a few hours north to the Olympic Peninsula.
Here’s how it went.
Day One: Humans vs the Machines
My first stop was the Sidney Museum and Arts Association in Port Orchard. I browsed their history books, found my ancestors’ names, and even discovered a photograph of my grandfather playing on his high school baseball team!
Grandpa!
After that, I went to see if I could find the home my great-grandfather, William Peterson owned and raised his family in.
Through an odd tangle involving AI, I got some very convincing but incorrect information about which house it was- quite a tangle, in fact. But that’s another story for another day.
Fred and I in front of the house my great-grandfather owned.
Eventually, with the help of actual humans, I found the correct house.
Lorraine Olsen, the owner of Mrs. Howe’s Bed & Breakfast, where I was staying, happens to be friends with the current owner, Fred Chang. Fred was kind enough to give me a tour of the house!
He also has a charming ADU/B&B called the Red Cottage.
(I made the beginnings of a drawing of the house which I will share when I like it better!)
Day Two: Petersons, Petersons Everywhere
The next morning, I headed to Sunset Lane Memorial Park, where I knew my great-grandmother was buried. After contacting the cemetery management to locate her grave, I did a drawing.
I wanted the low angle I could get by sitting in the passenger seat of my car- a fortunate choice, as it started raining.
Sunset Lane Memorial Park
Then the sun came out, and the drawing eventually became a full-fledged painting, much brighter than I had originally anticipated.
Painting of my great-grandmother's grave
Next to Sunset Lane is an old, closed cemetery called the Knights of Pythias Cemetery. I wondered whether some of my ancestors might be buried there, so I pulled up Find a Grave on my phone and started searching.
I felt like a detective, lurking around the cemetery, looking at photos from Find a Grave and comparing them to the scene in front of me. Eventually I did find a cluster of Petersons in one corner! Although my great-uncle Ralph is there, I am not presently aware of how the rest of them are related to me.
I made another call to Sunset Lane, and they gave me the number of Jay, the custodian of the cemetery records. I called and, bless him, he actually answered the phone.
He confirmed that my great-great-grandfather Oliver Peterson is also buried there. However, the burial records were damaged by rats many years ago, so although we know he is there, his headstone is now missing or buried beneath the soil, and we don't know exactly where he is.
In the afternoon, I wandered around Port Orchard and found the location of the Peterson family grocery store, right in the downtown waterfront area. The building has long since been demolished and replaced, and it wasn't particularly inspiring as a drawing subject.
Instead, I discovered a tiny foot ferry connecting Port Orchard and Bremerton. For two dollars, I got to ride across the bay and right back again.
A lovely little excursion!
Day Three: The Elwha Klallam Museum
Elwha Klallam Tribe logo
The next day I drove to Port Angeles and visited the Elwha Carnegie Museum. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe manages the museum and displays cultural and historical artifacts relating to the Tribe and other Native communities on the Olympic Peninsula.
I love a good museum, no matter how big or small. But I had a particular interest in this one.
My great-great-grandmother was Josephine St. Louis Peterson Allison, the daughter of a Frenchman and a Native American woman named Sallie Howard. According to multiple affidavits in my family records, Sallie was a member of the Klallam tribe.
Today, the Klallam people are organized into four separate sister tribes, and I don't know which of them my ancestors belonged to.
But Suz Bennett, a Lower Klallam Tribe member and manager of the Elwha Museum, was kind enough to spend time with me at the museum and give me some ideas about how I could find out more about Josephine, my only ancestor who actually belongs here.
Josephine St. Louis Peterson Allison
Day Four: The Absolute End
As I've mentioned before, I'm often compelled to go to the absolute end of a thing, just to experience being there.
Neah Bay sits at the northwestern tip of the contiguous United States, and I just HAD to go!
Want to know how far out this is? My phone thought I was in Canada, that's how far!!
Once there, I hiked out to Cape Flattery and perched on the observation deck.
I made a short drawing of Tatoosh Island and the historic Cape Flattery Lighthouse.
The sun came through the clouds, and it was soooo satisfying!
Viewing platform at the end of Cape Flattery trail, with Tatoosh Island
Drawing of Tatoosh Island, WA.
Another reason to visit Neah Bay was the Makah Cultural and Research Center, home of the Makah Museum. It's devoted in large part to the extraordinary Ozette archaeological site, located on a beach about 25 miles south of Neah Bay. (I didn't visit Ozette itself. Too far!)
The story of Ozette is extraordinary.
Sometime in the 1700s, a mudslide buried a Makah village on Ozette Beach. The people rebuilt their village on top of the slide and continued living there.
Eventually, the settlement became seasonal rather than year-round, and under pressures exerted by US governmental policies, it was finally abandoned in the 1940s.
Ozette Village, late 1800s
Ozette Archaeological Site, 1970
But the old village, buried beneath the mudslide, lay sleeping until…
In 1970, a storm caused the bank at Ozette Beach to slump, exposing houses, tools, baskets, and countless other objects that had been preserved for centuries in the low-oxygen environment.
What followed became an important early example of Native communities and archaeologists working together.
The museum, opened in 1980, displays remarkable archaeological finds, including organic materials that would ordinarily have deteriorated long ago.
Baskets, cloth, wooden tools- even the very houses, though squashed- were recovered.
A wooden artifact from Ozette archeological site
That evening, looking for dinner, I wandered into a bar called Rosie's at the Wharf and discovered a musical jam night. A guitarist and fiddle player were leading a group of people singing along to Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and Gordon Lightfoot.
I was adopted by a table of music and wine enthusiasts.
A very good end to a great day!
Day Five: Josephine Found!
As I've often said, planning is not my strong point.
I knew Josephine and her son William—the owner of the Port Orchard house—were buried at Mount Angeles Memorial Park in Port Angeles. But if you want to find a grave in a cemetery, you really need a map.
I had not done the research! I simply showed up with my drawing materials, expecting… what, exactly?
I realize now that I've been extremely lucky. I've always managed to find someone on-site, call a phone number and get help, or stumble upon the information I needed. I even once had someone email me the GPS coordinates of a grave!
This time, I couldn't get a knowledgeable person on the phone, and my first attempt was a complete bust.
But I didn't give up.
I called again, and this time I was emailed a cemetery map.
Even with that, it took me a good half hour of walking among the headstones before I finally found Josephine and her son William.
It was wet and rainy, but I managed to make some headstone rubbings before getting back on the road for the 4½ drive home.
Rubbing of Josephine Peterson Allison's headstone
Planting Seeds
I feel as though I've been hit by a fire hose of inspiration, information, and questions. As an artist, I feel an almost frantic urgency to make GREAT ART about it now now now. But I know this is not how it works. This trip is like planting seeds that may eventually grow into fruit.
It’s all just part of my artistic practice.
This first extended trip will, I hope, be the beginning of a series of art and research adventures. Eventually, I’d love to travel to New England, Canada, and even Europe to see and experience the places my ancestors came from.