The Artist Colony Read online

  Sarah boarded the Del Monte Express to San Francisco and took the Overland Express #23 for the long journey to New York, retracing the route she had taken a month earlier.

  Rolled-up canvases of Sirena’s work were safely packed away in Ada’s steamer trunk. Sarah had decided her first gallery exhibition would be a two-woman collaboration between herself and Sirena Kassajara-Silvia. She’d have just enough time to frame Sirena’s canvases before the gallery opening.

  Albert was sitting next to her on the train. He resented being carried in an open carpetbag and often sniffed and snorted to make his discomfort known. When possible, she took him out and held him in her lap and once in a while she let him run up and down the aisles and stretch his short legs. None of the passengers seemed to mind and, as always, he made several friends. And to Sarah’s relief, no one paid any attention to the lady in the red Chanel suit.

  When the RMS Majestic pulled away from the Hudson River Piers on New York’s West Side, she and Albert were strolling across the ship’s deck. She picked him up when they got to the stern, worried he might slip overboard.

  She held him close and looked down at the churning ocean as the ship’s massive propellers cut through the water with a deafening noise. She looked up and watched as her native country slowly receded into the distance. As the ocean widened, she felt an overwhelming sadness as she thought about the people she was leaving behind.

  She imagined Rosie in the kitchen making dinner for her girls who were out making art on the beach; Mr. Kassajara would be down at the wharf with his divers celebrating their abalone catch; Armin Hansen might be heard shouting to his students at their easels, “Just paint!”

  Sarah breathed in the blue air and closed her eyes. When she opened them, a white-plumed tern with slender legs was perched on the railing in front of her. Brilliant black eyes gazed into Sarah’s and she knew this was Ada coming to say goodbye. Her own heart soared when the elegant tern hovered above her and spread white-arched wings over her like a shawl. Kree-aaahh, kree-aaahh she called out to Sarah before soaring into the cobalt sky and disappearing beyond the horizon.

  AFTERWORD

  A month later, Rosie sent a letter to Sarah in Paris. Enclosed was Ada’s revised death certificate signed by Monterey’s District Attorney—“Profession: Artist. Cause of death: Strangulation. Manner of death: Homicide.” Rosie also included an August 10, 1924, clipping from the San Francisco Examiner’s front page: Famous Rum Runner Captured: Robert Pierce died from wounds suffered in gun battle with the coast guard in Monterey Bay. There was, of course, no mention of Sarah or Mr. Kassajara’s involvement in his capture.

  After the very disgruntled Western Insurance Company received the revised death certificate, Sarah received the cash proceeds of Ada’s life insurance policy. She then contributed the funds to create the Davenport Art Association of Carmel, stipulating that a grant be given each year in the name of Sirena Kassajara-Silvia to a worthy art student. All races would be considered and would be eligible for membership in the Association.

  Eighteen years later in 1942, during the Second World War, hundreds of Japanese immigrants (issei) who had come to the United States in pursuit of the American Dream, and their American-born descendants (nisei), like Machiko Inaoka and Tajuro Watanabe, were rounded-up from their homes in Monterey and sent to a detention center on the Salinas rodeo grounds. Several months later, they were transported to an internment camp in Topaz, Utah, where they lived for three years, enduring inhumane living conditions. When they were allowed to return home after the war, they found their village in Whalers Cove destroyed and Japan Town mostly razed. Nothing was left. Not even a plaque to mark their moment in history. Mr. Kassajara died before the Second World War and fortunately never spent any time in the internment camps, nor did he witness the destruction of his village.

  OF HISTORICAL NOTE

  In February 1942, after Pearl Harbor was attacked, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which empowered the military to remove any persons from any area in the country where national security was at risk. Even though the executive order did not mention the Japanese by name, it was effectively designed to contain Japanese Americans in California, Oregon, and Washington State.

  These states enforced curfews that required Japanese Americans to stay inside their homes between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) went to work arresting suspicious “enemy aliens” who might be leaders in the Japanese community, such as Shinto and Buddhist priests, businesspeople, teachers, and professionals. California fired all state employees of Japanese ancestry without reason or constitution.

  Executive Order 9066 displaced some 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes; about 70,000 of this group were U.S. citizens. They were sent to detention centers. Several months later, they were transported to internment camps across the country.

  After the war, more than 440 people in Monterey—including novelist John Steinbeck, photographer Edward Weston, and poet Robinson Jeffers and his wife Una—signed a petition calling for residents of Monterey to “insure the democratic way of life” of those of Japanese ancestry who would be returning to their homes on the Monterey Peninsula in the months ahead. It was published in the Monterey Peninsula Herald on May 11, 1945.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  All my creative writing starts from within me, but no way would my words ever make it to paper if I didn’t have the support of my extended family, my amazing circle of supportive friends, and the professionals who saw this through to publication. Unfortunately I only have room to mention a few, but I will carry you all in my heart forever.

  Thank you to my husband, Jim, who critically reviews my work and encourages me to never give up. Thank you to my children, Amie and Sam, who put up with me when the going gets rough and help me to laugh at myself.

  Thank you to Heather Lazare, editor extraordinaire, who helped me turn my mystery into a sweeping historical novel. To Steve Lewis and Randi Feldman, who read through several rough drafts and made it so much better. To Sasha Tropp, a smart copyeditor, who caught some embarrassing whoppers. To Brooke Warner at SWP, who gave me the “green light,” and to my project manager, Shannon Green, who kept the light green.

  Thank you to Caitlin Hamilton Summie, an exceptionally dedicated publicist, who is always there when I need her, and to my agent, Beth Davies, who never stopped telling me how much she loved my book. Thank you to my taskmaster, Andrea Pirrotti, for being my social media guru. Thank you to Marjo Bryant and Aurelia Nichols for being elegant readers who left no word unturned. Thank you to Kat Martinez who knows how to handle social media far better than me.

  Thank you to the good citizens of Carmel-by-the-Sea for preserving the hundred-year-old historical landmarks that revved my imagination. Thank you to the legendary Carmel Art Association formed on August 8, 1927, by a small group of artists who gathered at “Gray Gables,” the modest home/studio of Josephine Culbertson and Ida Johnson at the corner of Seventh and Lincoln in Carmel-by-the-Sea to listen to my great-aunt Ada Belle Champlin, a member of the Laguna Beach Art Association, talk about the merits of establishing an association for “the advancement of art and cooperation among artists.” And a special thanks to Belinda Vidor Holliday who is an ever-present inspiration and the third artist-in-residence to inhabit The Sketch Box studio.

  A NOTE ON SOURCES

  Mary Austin, Louise Brooks, August “Gus” Gay, Armin Hansen, Una and Robinson Jeffers, and William Ritschel appear as fictional characters in this book, but I have tried to render respectfully the outward particulars of their lives.

  For my research, I depended upon a number of newspaper archives, especially Carmel’s own Pine Cone archives from 1924. The Images of America series, Arcadia Press, was extremely helpful. A special kudos to Monica Hudson’s publications in that series: Carmel-by-the-Sea and Point Lobos, with Suzanne Wood. It was a thrill to have Monica give me a guided tour of Point Lobos in the middle of a squall; I got soak
ed, but I also came up with a few plot points while standing in a downpour in front of Whalers Cabin.

  Tim Thomas gave me a guided tour of Monterey Wharf and the Japanese American Citizens League museum—an incredibly rich resource of Monterey’s Japanese history and culture. Monterey Museum of Art is where I viewed the brilliant Armin Hansen retrospective exhibit. Other location resources were: Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation, which give tours of Tor House and Hawk Tower; Herbert Heron’s Forest Theater, an historic amphitheater where plays are still performed; the La Playa Hotel lounge, which I converted into a speakeasy for a romantic setting (special thanks to the barten-dress-artist there who, when asked, explained the significance of a painter’s palette).

  An excellent resource for my character “Sirena” came from the 1929 novel, Passing, by Nella Larsen. A recent film adaptation by the same name was written and directed by Rebecca Hall.

  A special, posthumous thank-you to Pat Hemingway, whose voluminous collection of Monterey’s visual history in his California Views Photo Archive gave me many visual ideas for scene locations.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR

  THE ARTIST COLONY

  1. How much do you know about women painters and the history of women’s art? Has this novel inspired you to learn more?

  2. Did you know who Robinson Jeffers and some of the other famous people mentioned in the novel were? If not, did you look them up while reading? Why or why not?

  3. Art and creative writing share similarities as well as key differences. Discuss.

  4. Is this a feminist novel? Is any novel espousing equal rights feminist? How does this novel address the issue of equal rights more broadly?

  5. In The Artist Colony, women gather together to paint in Carmel-by-the-Sea. Do you think there were other artists’ colonies elsewhere? How does gathering to work together matter to the creative process? To the reading process? Do you think artists’ colonies remain important today?

  6. Why is the setting critical to the story? Would you ever want to visit Carmel-by-the-Sea?

  7. How does the theme of sisterhood affect the plot?

  8. What is the role of critics and criticism in this story?

  9. How are families portrayed in this novel? What kinds of families are depicted?

  10. This novel is, in part, about how people see or don’t see—landscapes, each other, and themselves. How do these various ways of seeing matter in this story?

  11. Why is Albert important?

  12. Why do you think the author added an introduction?

  13. Included in “Notes on Sources” is a reference to Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel Passing. One of its characters, Clare Kendry, was a resource for this novel. How does the recent film adaptation of the same title, written and directed by Rebecca Hall, portray Clare’s motives as being different from Sirena’s?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  © Michelle Magdalena

  Joanna FitzPatrick was born and raised in Hollywood. She started her writing habit by applying her orange fountain pen and wild imagination to screenplays, which led her early on to produce the film White Lilacs and Pink Champagne. At Sarah Lawrence College, she wrote her MFA thesis, Sha La La: Live for Today, about her life as a rock ’n’ roll star’s wife. Her more recent work includes two novels, Katherine Mansfield, Bronze Winner of the 2021 Independent publisher book award (IPPY) in Historical Fiction, and The Drummer’s Widow. The Artist Colony is her third book. Presently, FitzPatrick divides her time between a mountaintop cottage in Northern California and a small hameau in Southern France, where she begins all her book projects.

  For more information, visit www.joannafitzpatrick.com.

  SELECTED TITLES FROM SHE WRITES PRESS

  She Writes Press is an independent publishing company founded to serve women writers everywhere.

  Visit us at www.shewritespress.com.

  Talland House by Maggie Humm. $16.95, 978-1-63152-729-6

  1919 London: When artist Lily Briscoe meets her old tutor, Louis Grier, by chance at an exhibition, he tells her of their mutual friend Mrs. Ramsay’s mysterious death—an encounter that spurs Lily to investigate the death of this woman whom she loved and admired.

  The Silver Shoes by Jill G. Hall. $16.95, 978-1-63152-353-3

  Distracted by a cross-country romance, San Francisco artist Anne McFarland worries that she has veered from her creative path. Almost ninety years earlier, Clair Deveraux, a sheltered 1929 New York debutante, becomes entangled in the burlesque world in an effort to save her family and herself after the stock market crash. Ultimately, these two very different women living in very different eras attain true fulfillment—with some help from the same pair of silver shoes

  Estelle by Linda Stewart Henley. $16.95, 978-1-63152-791-3

  From 1872 to ’73, renowned artist Edgar Degas called New Orleans home. Here, the narratives of two women—Estelle, his Creole cousin and sister-in-law, and Anne Gautier, who in 1970 finds a journal written by a relative who knew Degas—intersect . . . and a painting Degas made of Estelle spells trouble.

  A Girl Like You: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel by Michelle Cox. $16.95, 978-1-63152-016-7

  When the floor matron at the dance hall where Henrietta works as a taxi dancer turns up dead, aloof Inspector Clive Howard appears on the scene—and convinces Henrietta to go undercover for him, plunging her into Chicago’s gritty underworld.