Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 28

8B Reno Gazette-Journal Sunday, November 21, 1999 Millennium The Starlet The Cowboy Poet A Waddie Mitchell another side art and an attempt to create a society, albeit temporary, that emphasizes tolerance, compassionate bureaucracy and mutual respect. "We thought the event made an important artistic impact on the state and the region," said Diane Deming, curator of the Nevada Museum of Art and member of the panel that added a special spot for Burning Man on this list. "It combines visual performance and brings together people from all walks of life. Although it originated in San Francisco, it became what it is in the Black Rock Desert and takes advantage of that environment." "The popularity of the event has grown beyond our own region and brings attention to this region," said Amy Oppio, director of communications for the Nevada Museum of Art. Oppio said journalists have called from around the country in the last couple years to ask about Burning Man.

The event has given rise to art shows in galleries from San Francisco to New York, Los Angeles and Milwaukee. It has also been featured in magazines and newspapers around the globe. "The awesomeness of 24,000 people standing in a circle around Burning Man and paying homage to this one piece of art is just incredible," said Eric Baron, co-owner of the Melting Pot world emporium in Reno. "It's hard to say what it all means. I think it means something different for everybody who comes there." "It's an amazing event," said Marian Goodell, mistress of communications for Burning Man.

"But it's still young. We're just getting started." Brian Beffort sent and thought with art. Women's issues are at the forefront of her work. In 1977, Fulkerson was the first volunteer to work for the Committee to Aid Abused Women. After that, she lobbied for state support of such issues as raising funding for women's shelters.

After two years of working with CAAW, Fulkerson decided it was time to find another way to honor women. That's when she started seriously making baskets. "She is a treasure for northern Nevada for several reasons," said James McCormick, retired University of Nevada, Reno art professor and panel member. "For one, she is a highly innovative and imaginative artist who creates with a very unfettered mind and spirit. She ranges widely in her use of materials, ideas, colors and lines.

Back in the 1980s, Fulkerson was making baskets on her own when she placed an ad in a local paper looking for honeysuckle. What she ended up with was Great Basin Basketmakers, a group of artisans who set goals to share ideas, not to compete. She also wrote "Weavers of Tradition and Beauty," published in 1995, founded "A Common Thread," a traveling craft art exhibit and has participated in more than a dozen art shows of her work throughout the country. Among her honors, Fulkerson has represented Nevada in national exhibitions featuring contemporary and traditional basketry. She has long been a teacher of her art throughout the community in such venues as Truckee Meadows Community College and the Nevada Museum of Art.

Susan Skorupa Edna Purviance In Memoriam Cowhand organized Elko Cowboy Poetry Festival Maybe what gives Waddie Mitchell his authenticity is his authenticity. Mitchell, one of the best-known of the cowboy poets, actually was a cowboy before he ever tried his hand at storytelling. He was born (as Bruce Douglas Mitchell) on the huge Horseshoe Ranch south of Elko. Because he spent most of his time with buckaroos, working during the day and listening to their stories at night, he got the nickname "Waddie" (old slang for from his father, "We didn't have electricity and that meant we didn't have TV," Mitchell said years later. "We had darn poor radio too.

So that meant we did the strangest things at night. We talked to each other. Young Waddie dropped out of school at 16 to be-i come a full-time wrangler and chuck wagon driver. He was drafted into the Army and, in a rare display of military efficiency, was stationed on a acre ranch near Fort Carson, where he served his hitch breaking horses. In the early 1980s Mitchell, by then working as i foreman of a ranch, appeared in a Public Broad- casting System documentary, "The Vanishing Breed," about the last cowboys on the continent.

The film featured some original poetry, and Johnny Carson invited the Nevada buckaroo to visit "The Tonight Show." He also appeared on other pro- grams, including Larry King's radio show and a Na-S tional Geographic special. Mitchell and a friend, Hal Cannon, organized the first Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering in 1984. It was considered a small and oddball event, but only Juntil it opened: More than 2,000 people attended. 8 That same year, he recorded his first album of poet-ry. Sales were modest, but his second album sold more than 10,000 copies.

That led to Warner 3 Brothers making him one of the first artists to on its new Warner Western label, with "Lone Driftin' Rider" in 1992. By that time the audience at the annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko was approaching 14,000, and Mitchell was approaching fame. He and Don 1 Edwards did a long promotional tour of festivals, concert halls, schools and universities to sell the album and to tell audiences about their nearly ex- tinct way of life. Mitchell released his second Warner album, Buckaroo Poet, in 1994, and appeared as a guest host on VHl's Country Country show. He also was honored for his poetry and storytelling, and was inducted into the Cowboy Poets and Singers' Hall of Fame.

Cory Farley Chaplin's leading lady was a Paradise Valley native With his trademark derby hat, cane, mustache and penguin-like waddle, Charlie Chaplin is one of the seminal icons of the 20th century. And Edna Purviance, of rural Nevada roots, was his leading lady for 35 films during the Silent Era. In 1896, Purviance was born in Paradise Valley, then raised in Lovelock. But the area was too small to hold her for long. Her striking beauty and musical talent led her after high school to San Francisco, where she worked as a typist and socialized with the artsy crowd at Tate's Cafe on Hill Street.

There she met Carl Strauss, in town scouting for a leading lady for the young Charlie Chaplin. In his autobiography, Chaplin described her as "more than pretty, she was beautiful. "I doubted whether she could act or had any humor, she looked so serious," Chaplin wrote. "Nevertheless, with these reservations, we engaged her. She would as least be decorative in my comedies." Purviance and Chaplin fell in love almost immediately, and she remained with him as his leading lady, and as his mistress and confidant through three marriages.

They never married, and she made only one film beyond her comedies. Between Pur-viance's last film in 1924 and her death in 1953, Chaplin kept her on the payroll at 1 ,000 a month. Throughout her career, Purviance returned to visit family in Nevada often. "She used to come to my grandmother's house," said Beth Bodily, Purviance's second cousin. "My mother used to talk about her often, and I remember how pretty she was.

But I was only 7 or 8 at the time, and I wasn't so impressed with such things." Now, however, few relatives remain. No street names, buildings or monuments memorialize her. The most telling reminder of her life in Nevada is a flapper-style beaded dress that she'wore in "The Adventurers." Once bright blue, it has since faded gray and sits at the Humboldt County Museum in Winnemucca. Brian Beffort The Movement la-lee or fX The Crafters TT American Indian's baskets now are museum pieces Her art was uniquely American that is, of the American continent. Her materials and her designs were of the Earth and the finished products became highly sought art, much in demand by museums and private collectors.

Dat-so-la-lee was born Dabuda about 1835. Over the nearly 100 years of her life, she would make some 300 baskets, woven from grasses and plants native to the Lake Tahoe region and nearby areas. Dat-so-la-lee's art began as necessity. Her Washoe people used baskets for ceremonial and mortuary uses, as well as for day-to-day tasks such as gathering and storing food and carrying water and babies. She lived first near the Woodsford, area, southwest of Minden.

She might have met Captain John C. Fremont when he explored the Carson Valley in 1844. Dat-so-la-lee, a name she acquired as a girl, married a young Washoe named Assu and had two children. Neither child lived long, and Assu died a few years later. In 1871, she moved to Alpine County, to work for a rancher.

There she met Abe Cohn, who later became her manager and agent. When Dat-so-la-lee married Charley Kizer in 1888, she changed her name to Louisa Kizer. After 1895, museums and collectors began to realize the exceptional art work of her baskets, which were made largely of willow, sewn with non-interlocking close stitches to create a tight, uniform perfectly symetrical container. Walking down a Carson City street one day about this time, she saw one of her baskets in a shop window. Abe Cohn owned the store.

Dat-so-la-lee went to work for the merchant weaving baskets; Cohn in turn built her and Kizer and house and provided their necessities. Dat-so-la-lee died in that Carson City house at about age 96 in December 1925. Today her baskets on are on display in the Smithsonian Institution. Some have criticized Dat-so-la-lee saying other Indian basket makers were at least as talented but didn't have the opportunities to promote themselves that Dat-so-la-lee had, said Nevada state archivist Guy Rocha. "She received a higher profile than others and in doing so became known world wide," Rocha said.

"But she was one of a number of basket weavers, probably the most prominent, that today help us understand that art form." Susan Skorupa i Bertha Nugget's performing elephant charmed many She didn't gain fame and fortune with a golden voice or by floating across the stage in dainty ballet slippers. But Bertha, the performing elephant at John As-cuaga's Nugget, captured the hearts of children and adults in an incomparable way throughout her 37 year-career. Bertha had the distinction of appearing on television in the "Ed Sullivan Show," "The Dinah Shore Show" and the "Steve Allen Show." She opened shows for hundreds of celebrities, including Pearl Bailey, Red Skelton, Shirley MacLaine, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds and Liberace, who sometimes made his entrance riding on her trunk. Bertha could play "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" on an oversized keyboard, paint while wearing a beret and dance "Baby Elephant Walk." Her balancing feats were a marvel. She demonstrated her community spirit by taking part in parades and visiting area schools where she was always a hit with the children.

Suffering from arthritis, she was retired from performing a month before her death. Her health continued to decline rapidly, but the cause of death has yet to be determined. She died quietly at age 48 on Nov. 10 in the Elephant Palace at the Nugget with her trainer and companion, Don Bloomer, by her side. John Ascuaga paid tribute to Bertha when he said, "She was such a special animal.

There won't be another one. Everybody feels like they had the best dog in the world; I feel like I had the best elephant. She'll be a big loss to the community and all the school kids. She was a real favorite." Ga ye Delaplane 4 Mary Lee Fulkerson Burning Man Activism sparked local woman's basketmaking Baskets, Mary Lee Fulkerson has said, hearken "back to ancient times and places where art was inseparable from life, and that intrigues me." Fulkerson has created baskets out of things as mundane as garbage collected from along the Pyramid Lake highway; she's made others that grace the offices of state legislators. The baskets are layers in time, she said.

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