Idolizing

Floyd M. Storm illustrated the cover of this 1926 sheet music. Like our late local muralist James Abbott, Storm's work is much better handling backgrounds than people.

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James Abbott mural detail, Elma, Washington

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Detail of James Abbott mural, Elma, Washington

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James Abbott mural, Elma, Washington. He played with perspective in this one more than in his other works. It faces east, protecting it from the coastal winds, so this is in a better state of preservation than most.

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James Abbott mural on the old Rhodes Grocery, McCleary, Washington

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James Abbott mural detail and decay, McCleary, Washington. This is one of his later works. TBTG is probably for "Thanks Be to God."

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Detail of James Abbott mural in McCleary, Washington. The teacher portrayed in this picture is based on Emma Heslep (1902-1974) who was also a published poet.

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James Abbott mural, McCleary Washington

I notice here and in Elma, his murals painted on waferboard appear to hold up a little better over time.

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Of the four portraits by James Abbott adorning the front of the old Rhodes Grocery, this one of George Osgood (1868-1955) is the best.

Osgood was an early business partner of Henry McCleary.

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James Abbott's absolutely awful and almost unrecognizable portrait of Ada Johnson McCleary (1861-1923).  She was a remarkable person who knew how to use her power as the First Lady of McCleary to improve the lives of the people in the town.

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James Abbott portrait of Henry McCleary (1861-1943), the timber baron who virtually ran this town as a one-man principality until 1941.

This is a portrait of a timid person, and Henry was many things, but never that.

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James Abbott's mural portrait of a very young Nick Rillakis (1893-1970), McCleary, Washington. By the time I met Nick in 1964 he was a large, stout man with no hair at all. Nick was one of the last of what was once a large Greek population in town.

A bombastic and flamboyant fellow, he ran a store in town called Rhodes Grocery, the first concrete structure in McCleary. I recall he had a huge cheese wheel as a centerpiece. Today his store serves as cram-yer-crap place and is covered with Abbott artwork.

The waferboard "canvas" gives this and the other portraits a nice texture.

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Four portraits by James Abbott at the entrance of the old Rhodes Grocery, long ago converted to a cram-yer-crap storage business. So far as I know, this little alcove is unique in the Abbott art experience in that he has an area where human faces are the main focus. This was not his strong point and the combined effect is actually sort of like eating stale bread.

I bet if we took a poll here in McCleary, Washington (pop. about 1600) on who these four portraits are supposed to represent the results would be enormously embarrassing to the town. So, at the risk of sounding like a know-it-all, stick with this blog and in the words of Sherlock Holmes, "observe and learn." I even personally met one of the subjects portrayed here.

Also, this is a spot where certain inebriated people like to hover for awhile. How one can do that while all those eyes at your back, I don't know, but they do.

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James Abbott and the ravages of the elements teamed up to form this nice impressionistic detail on his last remaining mural in McCleary, Washington. I love the way Abbott used the reflection of our  typically wet roads in this piece.

This particular image actually faces an alley, so it is missed by anyone just passing through.

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I always liked this little guy. Detail of a dog in a James Abbott mural, McCleary, Washington

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Decaying James Abbott mural, McCleary, Washington

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James Abbott mural detail, McCleary, Washington

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Detail of wear on a James Abbott mural, McCleary, Washington

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James Abbott mural detail, McCleary, Washington

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James Abbott mural, old Rhodes Grocery, McCleary, Washington