Each morning I awake and walk downstairs to breakfast and the newspapers.  When I hit the ground floor the first thing I do is go to the clock and open the long door and carefully pull down on first the left weight until it hits the wood at the bottom of the case and then the right weight.  I’m careful not to go to0 far or to disturb the pendulum in any way.  The swing of the pendulum is slightly wider than the case of the clock so there is a slot carved into the right and left side of the case in the shape of the pendulum.  It is about one inch deep.  I assume a lot of things about this clock and I assume the hole was carved at the time the clock was made.  The color of the patina on the wood is the same both inside and outside the pendulum slot.

I do this job first thing each morning, before I go outside and get the newspapers and before I make the coffee.  If I occasionally forget to wind  the clock I have to pay a price with an additional task.  If the clock winds down and stops then I have to wind it by pulling the weights down and then turning the hands slowly and stopping at each hour to let the chimes sound.  Waiting for 12 chimes takes the longest.  Once I have arrived at the correct wristwatch time I then pull the weights down again to the daily starting position.

I marvel at the frugality of my ancestors who originally purchased this clock.  They selected a 24 hour clock.  I assume it was cheaper than an 8 day clock.  The extra labor to wind the clock daily was worth the money saved.  But when you multiply the time it takes to wind the clock by 365 times each year for over 200 years I’m beginning to wonder.  I wonder about a lot of other things too, as I wind the clock each morning.  How has it kept running all these years?  How is it that no one ever decided to refinish the case or repaint the face?  How did it stay in one family so long?

I am the temporary custodian of this clock because my family believed in the concept of male primogeniture. Primogeniture is the right, by law or custom, of the first-born to inherit the entire estate, to the exclusion of younger siblings. Historically, the term implied male primogeniture, to the exclusion of females.  The rest of the historic Nichols estate from each generation must have been dribbled away over the centuries but the clock remained.  That’s one of the great things about clocks.

My father had two brothers and a sister.  One brother was older and one younger.  Those brothers both had daughters.  My father had two sons.  I am the elder.  When my father’s uncle Sam died it became time to pass down the clock.  Uncle Sam and Aunt Jeanette did not have children.   At Sam’s death the clock went to his nephew, John Nichols, Sr.  John, Sr. was not the oldest male in the line of Nichols but he was the one who bore the only sons.

After Uncle Sam and Aunt Jeanette’s estate in Vista, California was dispersed my dad and mom were called to come in and claim the last object in the house after the estate was divided by sale or gift.  That object was the Eby clock.  The clock went to the home of John and Ida May Nichols, Sr. in Ventura, California and lived there for a while.  When John and Leslie Nichols, Jr. purchased a home of their own it was decided that the clock should move to their new home.  They were going to get it some day anyway.  It has been in their Santa Paula home for over 30 years.

John and Leslie have no children, male or female.  John’s brother, Jim Nichols and his wife Sharon had one son, Tann.  Tann and his wife Nicole have two sons.  The clock will go to Tann at or before the death of John Nichols, Jr.  Tann can keep it for as long as he lives or wants to.  It is assumed that the clock will eventually go to the elder son of Tann and Nicole at or before their death. I could decide not to wait until my death to pass the clock along but what’s the rush?  I’m still enjoying the clock and using it daily.

Paul Skeels, local clock repair man, lawyer and friend came over to take a closer look at the clock one afternoon.  We soon had it apart and the pieces spread out on the carpet of the living room.

Here Paul holds the works as seen from the rear with the back of the face and the replacement seatboard.  I assume the clock was repaired at one time and this more modern seatboard was  installed.  My mother might know.

This is a side view of the works.

Below is a view from above. 

Works from an angle.  Notice that the arm projecting holds the top of the pendulum.  The swinging pendulum moves the  other projecting piece to advance the gears.  I’ll leave it to the clock experts to come up with the correct names for all these pieces.

 

Close up of the face with name of maker.  For a long time I thought the clock was made in Manheim, Germany.  I later learned that it was made in Pennsylvania.

Face with bird and flowers.  Note the original hands and the smaller dial showing days of the week.

Detail of the face showing crackling of the paint in certain areas.

After removing the weights and the pendulum the housing for the works and face on the seatboard slides off of the tall case.  I have shimmed the clock with matboard on the left.  Notice the open door showing the original finish that has been covered by the closed door and the patina and aging on the rest of the clock.  We are very lucky that this clock have never been desecrated by refinishing.

This is the face of the pendulum on the carpet.  Paul Skeels was at dinner one evening recently and noticed that the clock was almost 10 minutes slow.  He told me that I could adjust the clock.  Which way I asked?  Well, turn the screw at the bottom of the pendulum to raise it and it will go faster and speed up.  I adjusted it and now it keeps relatively perfect time.

This all seems obvious in retrospect.

The back of the pendulum shows how the brass face was filled with lead.  Another assumption.

The pendulum, the weights and what I would call the counterweights and the chain on the carpet.  The hooks at the top of the large weights have a sharp point.

This is somewhere on the clock but I can’t remember where.  Might be on the back of the face.

I did not notice this label even as Paul and I were taking the clock apart to inspect it.  Samuel Z. Nichols.  The Z. stands for Zug, an old family name.  Nicole Kuzman-Nichols is exploring geneology and will know.   It is flow ink on what look like old hospital tape.

The current, temporary custodian of the clock, John Richard Nichols, Jr.

My height is 6’ 1.5”.  I have attached it to the wall with one heavy screw through the back of the case.

That almost seems like it would be the end of the story of the clock.  A few months after Paul and I had taken the clock apart and examined it I poked around some more.  I opened the door and looked down into the bottom of the case.  It was dark and I did not see anything.  I reached in and felt around.  I came up with a piece of old wood.  After my short education from Paul I knew immediately that I had found the original seatboard that had been replaced by the newer one.  Isn’t it obvious now?

The seatboard had two labels attached to it at different times.  One on top of the other.  The top label was in two pieces and the loose piece was found at the bottom of the case.

 

This “Jessop” label was glued on top of the “Roehm and Son” upsidedown.  Here’s what I found out about the newer of the two labels.

The sticker on top was a hand written label.  It reads J. Jessop & Sons.  The date is 1916 with a number also of 7554.  I assume that is a job number for a repair to the clock done in 1916.  An internet search revealed information on the history of that company.

History of the Jessop firm from a newspaper mention.

Jessop’s has been the trusted source of diamonds and fine jewelry in San Diego since 1892 when Joseph Jessop, great-grandfather of today’s owner, Jim Jessop, opened J. Jessop and Sons. Generations of our family have been an integral part of the San Diego community. And five generations of Jessops have followed in each other’s footsteps, carrying on a jewelry tradition that is unique in San Diego. We are proud to be known as the best source of fine jewelry and diamonds in San Diego.

Jessop Jewelers has made many changes over the years to better serve their clients. George Carter Jessop, a long time owner of Jessop’s, used his name as the firm name for many years. Through all these changes the philosophy of Jessop’s has remained the same. We back our quality, our value, and most of all our integrity, with five generations of trusted jewelers and with an exceptional team of jewelry and diamond experts.

A lot of the Nichols family lived in San Diego at that time.  It may be possible to make an educated guess as to who the owner of the clock was at this time.  It would have been an owner before it was passed on to my dad’s uncle Sam.

The sticker under the “Jessop” label revealed more information.

ROEHM & SON (Manufacturing Jewelers, Detroit, MI, USA)

This company is listed in a newspaper c. 1899

This sticker indicates that the clock might have been serviced in Detroit in the 1890s.  Which branch of the Nichols were living in Detroit at that time?  When did the clock move to San Diego?  The stickers give us a lead but no sure answers.

Just when you thought you had all the information about this clock that your brain could hold…alongs comes more.

My mother, Ida May Nichols told me that she was given this snapshot by a distant relative.  This story needs to be confirmed.  Who wants to do that job?

 

On the back of the snapshot was written this:

Does this mean that the clock once lived and ticked in this very house?  Who was the owner at the time?

Now you know as much as I do.

Chapter 57

As Above So Below

            Hermes Trismegistus is my new main man. He is one heavy dude. I’m really surprised that his name is not a household word. It is around my household. My next cat is going to be named after him. In the morning I will open the door and yell, “Here Trismegistus. Here Trismegistus.” He will come running for that can of mackerel.

Who is Hermes Trismegistus? Why, he is the father of alchemy. Where would we be without alchemy? Our world would be a lesser place without the contributions of Hermes. I do hope that it will show no disrespect to call him by his first name. I feel as if I know him personally, even though he has been dead for centuries.

I first studied alchemy during a college course in medieval history. That’s the middle ages. Whose middle ages I don’t know. Someday students will be studying our time period and perhaps calling it the middle ages. I did my paper on alchemy and learned a lot of neat stuff. i didn’t get a very good grade on it but it is one of the few papers that I did that has had any lasting impact on me. I don’t remember now but i am sure that Hermes was mentioned.

High school chemistry taught me that alchemy was an early form of chemistry. A bunch of foolish men during a time when nobody had any brains thought they could turn lead into gold. How stupid can you get. After endless experimentation they discovered the principles of modern chemistry, almost by accident, as an afterthought. What were these people thinking of?

Schools plant seeds. They teach a little but mostly they plant seeds. The high school chemistry class and the college history class planted seeds about alchemy. I had to water the seeds and tend the soil around them myself. Great concepts like alchemy can only be grown from seed. They can’t be transmitted from one head to another in a public school setting. I don’t think that there has been a single time in all the years that I went to school that a teacher tried to teach about things like alchemy and about the existence of a hidden reality that constitutes the underlying essence of all truths and all religions.

Maybe it isn’t a seed that was planted way back when I first heard about alchemy. Maybe it was more like a beneficial virus that I was exposed to that showed up in my life after a couple of decades. It showed up one day when I was searching around for just the right title for a photograph I had just printed. I hung the photograph on the wall and thought about it for several days and tried out several titles that didn’t stick. Finally one came to me and it was just right. Just like Goldilocks’ bed. I titled the photo “As Above So Below”.

I showed this new photo to a visitor in the gallery and told her that the title was the essence of hermetic wisdom. She acknowledged that she didn’t rightly know what hermetic wisdom was. It was at that point that I decided that I had better be able to explain a little of the ol’ crapola that I was slinging around.

Hermes gave his name to the hermetic philosophy. That’s alchemy. Today hermetic means completely sealed, especially against the escape or entry of air. That’s good to know when you buy food. In alchemy the hermetic vessel is a glass container within which a transformation occurs.

Now here’s the trick. Hermes Trismegistus and a lot of other alchemists right down to modern times talked about one thing but really meant another. What they talked about was the transmutation of base metals into gold. What they really meant was that consciousness can be radically altered and transmuted from the ordinary, lead-like level of everyday perception to a subtle, gold-like level of perception. Alchemy is a rainbow arching from the earthly to the heavenly plane, between matter and spirit. Like the rainbow, it may appear within reach, only to recede if it is chased by an unworthy person who only wants the pot of gold.

I imagine that it must have been very threatening to the ruling powers in the middle ages to be faced with a philosophy such as alchemy. It was threatening because alchemy presented a method for self transformation. If base, lead-like humans could, using the spiritual and symbolic tools of alchemy, transform themselves as a means of achieving oneness with the world, then what need would there be for organized religion and politics? This is what the medieval alchemists must have been saying to themselves. Their ideas were obviously a threat to the status quo. A threat to those who maintained control over the individual by dispensing knowledge and salvation.

The alchemists were not dumb. They knew they would be in big trouble if the authorities ever found out what they were really teaching. What they did to protect themselves from being burned at the stake was to encode their messages in symbols and stories. The symbols and stories led most people to think that the purpose of alchemy was to turn base metals into gold. The alchemists succeeded in hiding their knowledge from the crass masses who were only interested in gold. For those who were interested in spiritual transformation the message was there, in powerful symbolic form.

The alchemists learned to create within a sealed vessel a model of the universe and of human consciousness. The hermetic vessel is our consciousness. Within that vessel opposing complementary forces, symbolized by male and female, sulphur and mercury, earth and air, fire and water, attain the perfect synthesis, of which gold is the emblem.

By this time you are probably saying to yourself, “This defies linear logic!” I hope you are saying that, because that is the point of presenting these concepts in that way. The limitations of the mind must be transcended to achieve recognition of reality. Recognition of reality seems simple enough but when it is really achieved enlightenment results. Or so I’ve been told. Most of the time I’m stuck in this body getting flabbier by the minute. I really must start exercising and eating properly.

The photograph with the new title was hanging on the wall for just a couple of days before a poet from Bakersfield bought it to add to her collection of John Nichols photographs. It was an image of a rock in a stream in the Sespe. It looked like the swirling cosmos mirrored in a small portion of a small creek near a small town in California. Certain images can be used to perpetuate the miracle of the one thing. That’s what alchemy is all about. That’s what photography as art can be all about.

Please don’t tell anyone I told you about this. It was supposed to be a secret.

I have been working on understanding all the various factors to portraiture so I can make some for the Santa Paula Portrait Project.  Gail Pidduck is blogging about her experiences and I’m working to catch up.  I’ve taken a lot of portraits over the years but the portraits I want to make for the SPPP (Santa Paula Portrait Project) need to be a little different from my usual grab shots.  

I got a chance to take some time to make portraits of Santa Paula residents at an afternoon party in the backyard of Mary Beth and Denis.  I brought some equipment and set it up.  For simple, outdoor portraits I’m using a light stand with an umbrella that I shoot through, a Canon Speedlight 580 EX and two Pocket Wizards for wireless remote control from the camera to the lights.  Lights were placed 45 degrees off axis from subjects and up in the air at a 45 degree angle.

I was going to shoot some with my Canon 5D but just as I was about to shoot the screen went black.  I took the lens off to look at the mirror.  Later the mirror was found on the lawn.  Much later I found that Canon is now fixing the 5D due to faulty glue.  It’s being shipped back for repair now.  I quickly switched to my Olympus Pen.  That turned out just fine.

I liked shooting people I know well.  In some ways that is easier.  It was also easy in a party situation as nobody was in a rush to go anywhere.  It was a fun diversion.  Once the fellow guests saw other people getting their portrait taken they volunteered.  Soon they started to show up as couples.  

I have other, more powerful strobes and hot lights but those need to be plugged into 110 volts.  Those are for later and for shooting the actors at the Santa Paula Theater Center.

One issue I have been having as I practiced and studied was getting the Pocket Wizards to not only fire the flash but to adjust their intensity from the camera.  After a week of frustration I learned that there is a new, improved model of Pocket Wizard that does that.  I have some extra Pay Pal money from Ebay sales so that new model is on the way.

The challenge for me as a photographer of portraits is to make work that is different from the usual portraits that people pay to have made for their family room or their brochures.  How can I make portraits that don’t look like high school graduation pictures?  I’m constantly studying the history of photography for inspiration.This is my first batch of portraits (besides actors for Backstage a SPTC) that I have done with strobe.  Once my new Pocket Wizards arrive and my Canon 5D is repaired I’ll be ready to do more.  One interesting aspect of this shoot is that it was done in public with others looking on.  Working in public is an interesting aspect of this project.  With battery powered strobes I can set up on the sidewalk in front of the Goodwill or post office or at the gazebo near the train depot.  I’ll keep you posted.

The next phase of the project was to decide what to do with the images.  I’ve been exposed to ATC lately.  Those are Artists’ Trading Cards.  Artists can make cards 2.5×3.5.  They can only be traded or given away, not sold.  I printed up batches of 5 or 10 depending on how the layout worked out for gang printing.  I applied an over-lamination material and cut them to size.  I wrote CCTC on the back (Creature Company Trading Card) with the edition number and initials.  Then I gave them away.

Go to the Santa Paula Theater Center web site for more info on their productions.

I visited a photo show in Culver City recently where several dealers showed vintage photos.  I was struck by the number of portraits on sale.  Who would want to buy a portrait of somebody who was not your family member?  Me for one.  Buy and look a lot.  I think looking at portraits of previous humans leads us to a greater understanding of what it is to be human in our own skin now.

I started looking around at the art and photos hanging on the walls of my home and gallery.  There are a ton of portraits.  That’s the way I like it.

Now the challenge is to create some portraits for the Santa Paula Portrait Project that tap some of the depth of that tradition.  The goal is to reveal as much of myself in the portrait as I reveal of the sitter.

charcutepalooza blog.

I was advised to have patience, put a bowl of salted water under the duck and grope it.

There’s also a Flickr group with a lot of photos of the process and results.  I’m now one of the 55 members. That helped a lot.

After about two weeks of this I obtained an old refrigerator and a temperature control.  The humidity control has yet to arrive but I made do.  I think the new environment was conducive to the process.

Yesterday I felt it for the final time.  It occurred to me that I was feeling the fat side and that’s the side that would not have stiffened.  The meat side was feeling pretty done but I had no experience so had to guess.  I bent it back and forth and it seemed about right.  I cut it down and took it into the kitchen.

When I unwrapped it I thought I was a goner.  The meat side looked almost black and the fat side almost white.  Sort of like an Oreo with one of the cookies ripped off.

The Meat Side of the Duck Breast

The fat side sure looked like a lot of that bad old fat I’m supposed to avoid.

The Fat Side of the Duck Breast

I sharpened up a chef’s knife and cut into it.  Two thin slices went immediately into the mouths of Leslie and John.  Leslie was eating only the meat and I encouraged her to eat the fat with the meat.  It was pronounced delicious.  Better than any other duck breast prosciutto we had ever tasted.  After three weeks of gently kidding the pants off me for my daily duck grope and constant talk about it Leslie gave me a big hug.  I was redeemed.

Here’s what the inside looks like.

Duck Breast Prosciutto

Hanging Duck Breast for Prosciutto

The Duck Breast

That’s it, wrapped in cheesecloth and hanging from a string.  Being a male I had to assemble a few pieces of equipment and tools.  I found the refrigerator at the Ventura Swap Meet for $20.  I got the meat slicer at Goodwill for $12.99.  The thing hanging on the side is a temperature regulator.  The sensor is inside and I can set the temperature of the box to 60 degrees if I want.  Usually refrigerators won’t go that high.  Drying and curing the meat needs a temperature between 50 and 60 degrees.  I also will hook up a humidifier and gauge to keep the humidity about 60% by a similar system.  I’ll be able to control those two variables all year round.

The February challenge from Charcutepalooza is to make bacon and/or pancetta.

Hog Belly

As luck would have it I went to a vintage photo show in the Helms Bakery and had some time to kill so I shopped at Surfas just down the block.  They had a frozen pork belly and the pink salt I also needed.  I got 6 pounds.  That was more than I needed but it was the same price as 3 pounds shipped UPS in those cold cartons.

The Belly Sliced

I sliced the thawed belly into three portions.  The ends will be come bacon and the square middle will become pancetta.

Salt

I dredged the slab in the dry cure of  Kosher salt, sugar and pink salt.

The Wait

I put each slab into a 2.5 gal. freezer bag and into the refrigerator for a week.  I’ll turn it daily.

What will happen next?

Andrea Vargas in Her Studio

I had a productive talk this morning with Santa Paula artist Andrea Vargas in her studio.  I came to talk about the Santa Paula Portrait Project and see if she was interested in working with Gail and me on it.  She was.  I think it is going to be interesting to see the interaction of 3 artists on a single project and to see how each of us change and change each other.

Last year Gail ran across an artist named Rose Frantzen.  She told me about Rose’s portrait project and be both became inspired by her work.  Gail sent me a link to an interview with Rose that she found on You Tube. (Click to watch.)  More inspiration.

We started thinking and talking and decided to do something inspired by Rose in Santa Paula.  We did notice the portrait project started in Ventura recently by Johanna Spinks called “The Face of Ventura”.  That’s why we did not call our project “The Face of Santa Paula”.

We decided that we were not copy cats as the portrait is universal.  We will do our SPPP in our own way.  There will be some similarities to the Face of Ventura I’m sure but so be it.  The more the merrier.

The next step is to wait for Gail to return and talk more in person.  I’ll be studying and taking some portraits here and there.  Here’s one I took of Peter Krause on Monday night at the Santa Paula Theater Center.  He directed the play opening tonight, “Tales of the Lost Formicans”.

I started researching how to use flash and strobe lights.  It will be useful to have the flexibility to balance light as needed.  I worked through a tutorial on Strobist.  Now to practice, practice, practice.  One can’t get good at anything by just reading up on it.

My first practice was to shoot the actors in the new play at the Santa Paula Theater Center.   The Backstage play is called Tales of the Lost Formicans.  It opens Friday.  That was humbling.  I could not get my chosen camera to sync with my strobe light.  I had to run back to my gallery and get my Canon 5D and that worked.  My results were not always to my liking.  Not that my standards are too high but my technical abilities are too low.  It was good practice but in this case I had to get something that worked for sending out with the press releases to be printed in the local papers.

My secret trick for improving marginal images is to use my Topaz filters.  That’s a plugin for Photoshop.  Some might consider it cheating but it works for me.

This is a photo of one of the actors, Zack McKinley.  Shot in RAW, processed with Lightroom, then opened in Photoshop CS5 and then Topaz filter applied.  Saved back into Lightroom and then exported two ways.  One as about a 5 meg file at 300 ppi for press and one as the jpg you see here.  I also had to crop it to 8×10 as that is the size Gail and I are using for the “Head Shot” portion of SPPP.

There’s a lot more to the SPPP than just taking portraits.