A Once-Famous Idaho Artist Undergoes a Revival By Teddy Khteian-Keeton Photos from The Life and Art of Archie Teater, by Lester D. Taylor Before the death in 1981 of Patricia Teater, wife of the late Idaho artist Archie
From the Beet Fields to the World Stage By Ana Maria Cuneo Last February, I caught Cecilia Violetta Lopez’s performance of Violetta, the leading role in Verdi’s La Traviata, presented at the Egyptian Theatre in Boise by Opera
As it happened, I was working as an assistant at the public library in Cocoa, Florida, the summer of 1961 when, on the morning of July 2, Ernest Hemingway took up his prized shotgun in Ketchum and, as a buddy informed me, “blew his head off.” Continue reading
Growing up in a small town like Meridian in the 1950s was probably the best start anyone could have in life: the perfect atmosphere to create memories and friends that would last a lifetime. But that was what a small town was about. We knew everybody, every kid in school—and everybody’s parents knew ours. Continue reading
I had my first opportunity to see the Trailing of the Sheep Festival a few years ago when Andrea and Tom Rich, good friends of mine who have a long history of sheep ranching in Idaho, suggested I make the trip to Ketchum in October. Continue reading
On a bright afternoon in a warmer-than-normal March, from the driveway of John and Linda Wolfe’s house on the hillside above Pocatello, I see the sun glinting on the remains of mountain snowbanks which, in wetter years, would still cover the canyons.
Around the house, decorated flowerpots and painted metal sculptures gleam and spin. Inside, Linda and John greet me warmly, as do their dogs, Rosie, Abby, and Buster. My visit to these long-standing friends is not completely social. I have come to discuss a book illustration project with Linda, an artist I have worked with for more than thirty years. Continue reading
When I first heard the term “horsehair pottery,” I had a vision in my head of ceramic pieces wrapped in long strands of chestnut-colored horsehair, a bit like swathing pieces of thin rawhide around a vase. But the actual process turned out to be nothing like I expected, and the result like nothing I had ever seen.
I had heard about Jean Anglen of Cottonwood from a friend who said she made “beautiful horsehair pottery pieces.” I was skeptical. The idea of hair-wrapped ceramics didn’t really float my boat. But as a reporter for our local newspaper, I figured it didn’t really matter what I thought. Visiting with Jean might provide a nice feature story at some point, so I called and traveled the seventeen miles to the home she shares with husband Eldon. Continue reading
From the age of nine, I felt a compulsion to learn the secrets of how ancient flint and obsidian-flaked artifacts were fashioned by Stone Age craftsmen. This passion was sparked through the influence of my father, an avid outdoorsman who knew a bit about the ancient craft called flintknapping. He made and used small knives and arrow points of obsidian, or volcanic glass, to shoot and skin deer and smaller game. I learned from him how to make arrowheads, spearheads, and knives, sometimes of flint, but most often from obsidian. Later, I crafted more elaborate tools, such as large ceremonial blades and the rare fluted “paleo” points used by the first Americans for hunting big game, including the woolly mammoth and huge early bison. In college, I focused on stone tool technology while earning a bachelor’s degree in archaeology.
My obsidian and flint knives were put to a tough test in 2013, when my friend John Peri and Coeur d’Alene flintknapper and hunter Keith McMahan set up an experiment with a rancher to use the tools for butchering bison. My knives worked very well for skinning and butchering the animals, and after the experiment the implements were mailed to a laboratory for analysis and comparison to ancient artifacts. Microanalysis of striation on the blades of my replica knives showed wear similar to that of many knives excavated from Stone Age butchering sites. Continue reading
I grew up in a landscape so mild my mother declared it Camelot. We lived between green, softly sloped hills, and a few miles away stirred a gentle blue bay. So I arrived unprepared for southern Idaho’s dramatic, sometimes strange geography.
When we first arrived, everywhere I looked, my eyes affirmed, “This is not California.” Sure, the softly molded, brown foothills were beautiful, but the Snake River! It has done some magnificent and bizarre work. Our first exploration of Idaho was to Malad Gorge, a bottomless canyon carved out by a Snake tributary. We didn’t stay long. Just paces from the gorge’s edge, my small family peered over and cowered at the sheer, 250-foot drop to the river’s bed etched below. We could almost feel the dark floods that had thundered westward, scouring out the gorge. As fast as we could, we hurried back to the car.
As we traveled around, I tried to make sense of the landscape. Tossed boulders spoke of an ancient flood. In some areas, lava rocked peeked through sagebrush and desert. We learned that numerous old volcanoes once shredded the Snake River Plain with explosions and hot basalt lava flows. One hot August afternoon, returning from Hagerman and full of curiosity, we stopped at the famous Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho’s ground zero of volcanic activity. Continue reading
Years ago I wrote an article for myself, because it was one of those things that you just have to get out of your system. It felt important, like it had to be communicated to others, but I didn’t have anywhere to publish it. The article I wrote for myself was about the history of comic books in Idaho. In it, I wrote about the cowboy comic book called Idaho that was published by Dell Comics of New York City in the 1960s. I wrote about one-time Boisean Dave Stevens and his famous comic book character The Rocketeer. I wrote about native Idahoan Dennis Eichhorn and his Eisner Award-nominated autobiographical comic book series Real Stuff. I wrote about Boisean Andy Garcia’s Oblivion City comic book series. I wrote about Boise’s first comic book publisher, Bishop Press. At the end, I expressed a deep hope that all these people could get together and produce an anthology featuring the comic book creators of Idaho. It was a dream of mine to publish that article and organize that anthology. But no one ever read it.
Why was I so interested? I just loved comic books. One of my earliest memories is of sitting around the dining room table in Boise with my parents, cutting out a bunch of order forms from a stack of my old Captain America comic books. My parents ordered a subscription for me to Captain America, posters, and toys related to the star-spangled Avenger. My younger brothers and sister dabbled in comic books for a time, but I was hooked for life.
I’ll never forget the first time my parents took me to a comic book store at its old location on Fairview Avenue in Boise. The same store is still on Fairview, but it used to be farther down the street, next to where a pizza joint is located that eventually absorbed the comic book shop’s old storefront. I had never seen so many comic books in my life. The rich bouquet of newsprint filled the shop with the smell of yesteryear—the Golden Age when comics were king.
There were so many old comics. There was Superman #123, in which Supergirl made her first appearance. There was Detective Comics #38, which had the first appearance of Robin. There was The Incredible Hulk #181, the first appearance of Wolverine. A framed original drawing of The Rocketeer by Dave Stevens hung on a wall. I had no idea such a place existed. This was my new mecca, Disneyland, and heaven all rolled into one. Continue reading
