Artists :

Harry Smith, Russel Legge, Paul Honore, Joe Kraemer, Krynowskie, Ivan Swift, Ann Campbell, John Coppin, John Carroll, De Erdelye, Van der Heyden, Bennett-Reginald, Beckwith, Peter Adams, Fred Rypsam, Harold Flucke, Ronald Spedden, George Rich, Gorge Stark, Evarts Bradner, Tom Schroeder, Jay Hannah and Oscar Klausner.

George Rich

A well known and well liked artist who has taught art in Detroit for a good many years. You will find his students in every phase of are from the commercial studios, easel painters, teachers and many who paint just for their own enjoyment. He can paint an oil painting, make a water color, carve the frame or carve statues with the assurance of a professional wood carver. What's more he dressed like an artist, looked like one and lived like one.

He won a couple of scholarships and studied in Europe and the United States. He had an art studio on the side of a volcano in Hawaii until the army picked him up--what they used him for I don't know. After the war, he came to Detroit, and had been one of our assets ever since.

His voice is soft and he never gets sore no matter what the occasion, but he is never influenced by anybody. He's a wet 'n wet painter, very productive, and his paintings are in many buildings, restaurants and homes throughout the state. He spends part of the time in his summer studio at Indian Village in northern Michigan where he paints and entertains his friends. His studio at the Scarab Club was a great place for artists and art lovers to argue art, drink his liquor and meet models--was always open to friends. As they say, "They don't make them like that any more."

Beaver Edwards

Former president of the Scarab Club, sculpture, painter and inventor who has worked and taught sculpture, in Detroit for a good many years.

He has worked in clay and a plastic of his own invention and has made illustrations for doctors and medical books. During the war he designed the modern army helmet in use in the service. He developed a plastic that he uses to make artificial hands or any part of the human body. It's as natural as life and it proved to be a great morale help to soldiers and civilians who have been disfigured in accidents.

I have seen the results of his work and it has been a wonderful feeling to see the difference it makes to people who have been disfigured. It is being used all over the world by doctors and men trained in making these wonderful sculptures. He has designed and sculpted everything from mantles for the home, the horse that advertised a spark plug and is now working on large sculptured groups for White Chapel Cemetery which are case in copper in Sweden and brought all the way over to this country by boat--right up to our docks in Detroit. He also paints, sketches, lectures to art groups, colleges, and doctors' groups. He is never too busy to help in any civic or charity drive.

His studio is always open to visitors, students and artists. Though it has a scary look at night with arms, ears, legs and large plastic figures all over the place which, with their shadows, make it an eerie place, but his cheerful smile and welcome talk tell you it is a creative place of a creative guy. He has written articles for national magazines and the Scarab club is proud of him--he has done a lot to put Detroit on the map.

Paul Honore'

A well known mural artist, illustrator, etcher, woodblock maker and teacher who had great influence on the art culture of Detroit.

When I first met him he was an illustrator for the American Boy (one of the best boy's magazine ever printed in this country) with a wonderful staff including C.B. Kelland who later became on of the best fiction writers of our times, and of all things he was chairman of the Republican Party for quite a while. Paul was a great lover of Brangwyn (a world famous muralist) and decided to take lessons from him. He traveled to England, but found out that Brangwyn was a very busy man with little time for teaching or students. He agreed to let Paul live with him, help in many ways and just learn by watching. That did a lot for Paul.

As he had very little money, he never was asked for room or board and when he left, he told Brangwyn that he would pay for everything when he made his pile back in old Detroit. All he got was a lecture which helped to make Paul a wonderful guy, and give him a philosophy that made him a friend and helper of all who loved art and wanted to learn. The advice was: Paul was to go back home, with his best wishes, forget what he owed Brangwyn, but to remember one thing, and that was how he got his training--never refuse to help any boy or girl regardless of the money angle. Paul did just that, as anybody could go to Paul's studio for a meal, or a bed when he needed it. Hundreds of young artists made use of this and it left its mark upon Detroit.

Many of the banks contained murals by Paul and he called them unlucky murals. When the bank holiday came along, most of these murals were destroyed by the re-modelers of those buildings which were turned into grocery stores, beer gardens and even churches. Paul painted a wonderful mural for the Dow Chemical Company of Midland with a new paint product with Dow metal being the binder, and it is supposed to last as long as the building. When I say Paul was a character, I am using the word in its best meaning, as the most interesting people I met, and learned to admire, were characters. He gave lectures to all the cultural clubs of Detroit. He knew art, history, methods, knew his anatomy better than most doctors. Paul had strong ideas about life, and he could give a good lecture to any group. He had a large studio on Fourth and Forest which was a meeting and studying place for artists, newspaper reporters, students, teachers, musicians, folks who loved art and most of them were characters themselves.

We called him "Satchel Pants" as he was a big man, had a pointed beard, wild hair with a reddish tinge, no business sense, no flair for clothes. He had a tux which answered most of his dress problems, but it usually needed pressing and as his nickname inferred, looked like a satchel with Paul sitting in them.

I remember one night, helping Paul pull some proofs of wood blocks for a lecture. He was wearing his clean white shirt, and one of the blocks slipped leaving his shirt looking like he used it to clean a printing press. My shirt wouldn't fit him, the stores were closed, the clock was moving toward the appointed hour and after doing some thinking we gave birth to an idea. We took a sheet of glossy white paper made a dickey out of it, and by using about ten pins we fixed him up, and the lecture went off fine.

He drove a Ford, about eight years old, with a few of the floor boards missing. You could look down, and see the road and I imagine you could have used your feet as brakes if necessary.

He was a great a believer in pure colors--no mixing of colors with white--and he could paint with red on one edge of his brush and green on the other edge and get good results. No delicate shades for him and I remember one failure and that was the result of laziness by the artists who helped him. One of the galleries needed redecorating and when the decorating committee could reach no agreement he told them he could paint a neutral background on the wall that would be gray in effect but would be painted with three pure colors--they gave him the job. One thing I found out too late in life is never give a committee an idea as it usually ends in you doing the job and getting all the criticism after your finish.

Paul should have known better but he got a few artists to assist him. Each one had a paint can of color and a brush and was told to make small dots all over the wall. The idea being that when the wall was full of small dots of red, blue and yellow it would turn into a harmonious warm gray in the manner of the French Impressionists. As these walls were quite large the artists got tired and lazy, like other people, and as time when on the dots became larger and larger and eventually were about the size of a duck's egg. We finally got the wall covered and boy, was that a wall. St. Joseph's coat of many colors was tame along side of it. You got kind of a dizzy feeling looking at the wall. The committee and Paul almost threw a fit but the boys who did it disappeared in short order and let Paul and the committee settled the matter which was done by mixing all the paint left in one bucket, throwing in some white, and going over the wall with a new coat and the committee had to be satisfied.

I still believe Paul had a good idea but the guys who did it were lacking in faith and ambition. All they really needed to do was make each dot about one-eighth of an inch in size and it would have done the job, but this kind of thing happens all the time in an artists club.

Later Paul left Detroit, and ran a boarding school of art at the mouth of the Delaware River. He ran it in the same free manner he did everything. He let every boy join whether he had money or not, fed them and they helped him grow a truck garden and dig clay for pottery. It would have been a wonderful idea if Paul had any business sense but nobody is gifted with everything. When his building burned down he found he had never insured them and had to start all over again. He never kicked about fate and kept on with his art until he died. I hope and believe there are a lot of people who remember him and what he did in the years he was on this planet.

Russell Legge

He was a dapper little fellow and an artist who knew fashions and dressed like a fashion model. He had the ability to take a model that could stop a clock and make a picture of a beautiful creature out of it. He had a wonderful hand with pen and ink with a quality all his own. I think his illustrations of theatrical people made for the Free Press where the best ever run in the newspapers. He knows all the actresses and actors and made sketches of hundreds of them. They all loved and respected him and would always pose for him.

He was a good layout man, lettering man and his cartoons were funny while still maintaining an artistic quality--they were not valentines but wonderful characters. He gave a good deal of his time and art to every worthy cause whether it was a charity drive, war bond sale, or just a civic affair.

He did a lot of work for the Player's Club, D.A.C., and other private clubs. he was one of the leading lights on the Scarab Ball decorations and they helped to make this the best decorated affair of that kind in this country.

Many small restaurants and individuals still have his sketches of females and they are as good today as they were twenty years ago as the nude figure has not changed through the years--thank the Lord!

He was president of the Scarab Club, love parties, good looking young women, a perfect gentleman at all times and everybody was his friend from the big shots to the colored waiters. When he died I never saw so many different classes of people, of all colors, who turned out to bid him goodbye.

Characters :

Through the years I have met a few men who really fit their occupations, as if they were really made for them, and were happy and contented with their work.

Hamilton

Another character I often chew the fat with is a consulting engineer who has been all over the world. He has worked designing boats, automobiles and plastics. His name is Hamilton and he told me that mistakes and accidents play a big part in inventions and in all events in this nervous world.

As an illustration - he said the poor marksmanship of the man who show at Roosevelt and killed the Mayor of Chicago changes the ideas and ways of running the United States, and most of the world for the next one hundred years. Our children will be trying to analyze it for the rest of their lives. I suppose he is right but it's one of those things you can't control and there is no use worrying about it.

Burroughs

One was Clyde Burroughs, Secretary of the Art Institute, who spent his time meeting and talking to Society people about cultural things like painting, sculpture, music. He talked to artists about their work keeping them all satisfied and happy. He had a way with a few kind words, a wonderful smile and never bringing up any thing argumentative and it must have made his world about as close to heaven as most men will ever get before going on their great adventure.

Campbell

Then there is Harvey Campbell, the Secretary of the Board of Commerce, a position that fits him like a stocking fits a food looking blonde. His smooth unruffled conversation, high-lighted with a wonderful sense of humor, fascinated many a business man who had troubles. He never tried to change the world's way of acting up. He must be very happy in that job meeting and advising exciting business men with the best brains in our dynamic city, in fact all over the state. We all should envy him.

Pete (unknown)

Then there is a truck driver, named Pete, who delivers automobiles all over the country with his truck trailer. A guy who really was built, both physically and mentally for that occupation. He loved the road, loved the scenery and great out doors with its wind and sun. He loved the excitement of handling the biggest thing on the road, and he seemed to look and feel like a king behind that wheel. Meeting strangers, blonde waitresses, tough drivers and having that horse power under his command seemed to make his job close to perfection.

Edgar Guest

I have read his poems, heard him give a talk and saw him as an actor. I'll admit my associations and environment, with my first immature ideas made him seem a little corny to me. In later years with more mature thinking, my sketching of nature and people and then getting to know people and nature better it dawned on me that Guest had something. I'll try to explain how I feel about him.

He could take a thought, or feeling, be it people or ideas and put in into words like a good water color artists could put it on paper--direct, sure and in a way that people could understand and enjoy looking at it. Everybody gets this feeling at times but few people can portray them like Guest did. His writing had everything--feeling, design, texture and made man's heartaches, ambitions and tensions a little more understandable to the average person.

There were writers who wrote with more technical skill, more involved moods, more details but most people like the simple direct way. They do not have the time to study or analyze words. They want comments on life and living to be honest and as simple as they feel them--a thing that Guest could do very well. He understood people, their moods, their ambitions, their trials and heartaches. He knew nature and lover all of it. He made people happier and more satisfied by putting them in words that simplified their thoughts and dreams that where a little confused in their minds. More no man can do. We should salute him and hope that another such character will take his place as putting our thoughts and dreams and moods in front of our eyes instead of leaving them in back of them is important.

If he had been a painter, and he would have made a good one, he would have used water colors as they are more subject to moods, more direct in telling a story, contain few details and get to man's brain quick. His poems, or whatever you want to call them, feel to me like beautiful water colors.