Dialogue with Blake Stimson and Melissa Chandon

Blake Stimson, Ph. D, Professor of Art History, University of California, Davis
Field of interest: 20th Century and Contemporary Art, History of Photography, Historiography and Critical Theory

B: What draws you to the landscapes that you paint?

M: I’ve always been drawn to agricultural landscapes having been raised on two family ranches. Grain silos, barns, irrigation ditches are all part of my childhood and my family’s livelihood.

B: Are the ranches still active?

M: Yes, my sister lives on one and they are now planting almonds. The other is co-owned by me, my other siblings, my aunt, and two cousins and we lease it to a farmer who plants row crops—sunflowers, corn, tomatoes, alfalfa etc. It’s called the Chandon Ranch and it has operated under that name for forty-five years.

B: I hear you make nice champagne too…

M: Ha! No that is Domaine Chandon in Yountville. They make a very fine sparkling wine (the champagne is Moet Chandon, from France). They recently contacted the family to complain about the use of the Chandon name for the ranch but we let those upstarts know who was here first! That said, they did once give me a seat by the fireplace in their restaurant because of my name!

B: Any discount on the meal?

M: Nope..

B: So how far back does the family go in the ranching business?

M: Well, my great-grandfather built a general store in Esparto that served ranchers at the turn of the century. My mother’s mother moved to Esparto from the Bay Area and taught ranchers’ kids in a one room school house. Her first husband was killed in a logging accident but she married again back in Berkeley and they ended up buying the Winter Ranch in Esparto in 1946—my grandmother went back to teaching and my grandfather worked for a Chevrolet dealership in Winters where he sold all the area ranchers their pickups. My father’s father was a farmer working all over Yolo County. He owned some land and leased other parcels and had a number of crews working for him. My father decided he did not want to go into farming so he went to college—UCDavis, where he studied agriculture, and University of New Mexico where he studied engineering—and then went on to work for Bechtel, Kaiser, and other large companies. We moved around a lot when I was young—Biloxi, Albuquerque, Fair Oaks, Danville, San Jose, Minneapolis—because my father was in the military and then moving from one contract position to another as an engineer. All the while the family ranches in Esparto were a kind of groundstone where we spent summers, where I had my first job working for a farmer when I was thirteen.

B: Any other firsts there?

M: Ha! Not, really, my grandparents kept a pretty close eye on me—early to bed, early to rise (we’re talking 5:30 AM for eggs, bacon, and percolated coffee before harvesting almonds, disking the fields, doing laundry, etc., all starting at 6:00 AM).

B: Sounds like hard work….

M: Not really, I learned how to drive at 12, and was running tractors all over the property at 13. My biggest pleasures were going for walks with the dogs down the country road and seeing sky, sunsets, hearing the sounds of nature, etc. Being the oldest of five and my mother’s primary helper these little bits of solitude were deeply gratifying. I loved riding around with my grandfather when we’d go into town and he would visit with all his friends, we would do a little grocery shopping at the big market, and finally end up at a doughnut shop for the ultimate treat–an old fashioned. 

B: How did your grandparents influence you?

M: They taught me many things.  They were collectors of antiques, so many an hour was spend antiquing, where they taught me about such things as the beauty of an oriental rug, the delicate color of a piece of cranberry glass, and the intricacy of cloisonné. I would credit my grandparents for giving me a sense of collecting, of art, design, and color. My grandfather was a self-taught man and he passed a sense of resourcefulness on to me as well. He lived through the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. His family lived in the park along with many other families that lost their homes. Not too long after this terrible ordeal his mother died and at the age of 12 his father left him to support himself in San Francisco. He learned how to be very industrious.  I have very fond memories of working along side my grandfather building perfect kites. My grandmother taught me about endurance and persuing ones dreams. At the age of 50 she went back to college to pursue more education for her teaching career.

B: These all sound like fond and enduring memories. What role do they play in your art?

M: Well, a lot. Because my grandparents taught me about museums and art and collecting and provided me with the principle of not giving up, they gave me a lot of respect for art and provided me with the tenacity to make it happen.

B: I understand, but your paintings don’t seem to be much concerned with any sense of art in general. They are not some vague abstractions, for example, but instead give a strong sense of place or region, and maybe a bit of sense of the past as well.

M: Well, I guess now I need to talk a little more about my parents. My grandparents provided me with a strong foundation and appreciation for art. But because we moved around a lot as a family and traveled for holidays—two adults, five kids, and two dogs in a Suburban towing a tent trailer—I gained a rich sense and attachment to place, particularly the ranches in Esparto, which, again, were a kind of touchstone for my itinerant childhood, but also other parts of the country that resonated with me. I remember one incident, for example, when we were traveling through Nebraska and stopped for gas in a small town when Marlon Brando pulled into the station beside us with his Native American girlfriend…

B: What year was that approximately?

M: Maybe 1972.

B: Around the time of The Godfather?

M: Yes, it really felt like an American experience—you know, small town, the expanse of the Nebraska landscape, the Chandon family in their Suburban gawking, and Marlon Brando.

B; I haven’t seen Brando in any of your paintings.

M: No but you do see aging Volkswagen buses, gas stations, burger stands, semis by the highway—they might as well be Brando.

B: Got it. What is your next direction?

M: Airport paintings. I was married to a man who seduced me by taking me on dates in his 1957 V-Tail Bonanza. It was really fun flying into these small airports—Half Moon Bay, Healdsburg, Eagle Harbor, a little town whose name I forget by Sausalito, Watsonville, etc. He told me wonderful stories about traveling across the country by plane, stopping in small towns along the way. His father was a Pan American pilot who himself had wonderful stories about flying to South America by prop plane, navigating by the stars, etc. It was very interesting to me comparing this form of travel to my family’s car trips, and these two men to my father—both my ex-husband Greg and my father approached traveling in the same way, like engineers, plotting the trips, destination by destination, making time, negotiating weather etc. Needless to say I took a more artistic approach to these travels, trying to appreciate the sights along the way.

B: So, to conclude, why do you paint these themes? I understand the personal connection that they represent for you but why are they meaningful to others?

M: Good question. Well, talking to others, I’ve discovered that many people of my generation—baby boomers—understand what I am talking about and painting. These are images of a time gone by, the time of the childhood and adolescence of the boomer generation. For example, I’ve painted a burger stand in Heber, Utah—The Snow King, it was called—which I found very reminiscent of the travels with my family. I first saw it, photographed it, and painted it in 2004 but my photographs did not turn out as well as I would have liked. I went back last year to take some more pictures and it had been torn down and replaced by an auto supply outlet I think—anyway, something pretty ordinary and banal. I was very sad about this. I guess the value of my painting is its role as a kind of memory of the recent past, a past that I share with many others.