Every once in a while, the universe sends you a signal that you are on the right path regardless of recent obstacles. My trip to the St. Louis Scottish Rite theater and library was a success. Several loose ends were tied up for me in terms of both the evolution of Masonic scenery and its future preservation.
As I reached for the last Volland Studio folder in the library during March of 2017, I had a sense of profound relief. For months, I had been working at warp speed and the pace was staring to wear me out. That morning, there had not been a moment to spare, as I needed to quickly return to the conference center for USITT activities. I reached for the final folder labeled “Miscellaneous,” wondering if this might include Shrine or Grotto materials. When I looked at the first photograph, however, time seemed to stop. I just sat there staring at an image. This was a momentous discovery.
I silently regarded this depiction of a Volland scenic artist sketching out a camp scene, the same one created for the Valley of St. Louis in 1924. The caption on the photograph even read, “painting a 32’ x 90’ drop on a 60’ paint frame.” I was too excited to speak for a minute and then called over to the librarian. By now, John was a little immune to my gasps of delight as I paged through dozens of degree production designs. “Here is a picture of a scenic artist working on the camp scene from your collection,” I said. John raised his eyebrows and came over to my table. “Really?” he drawled, “How can you tell?”
First of all, I photographed the scene from the same angle. I then pointed to the caption, explaining, “The note at the bottom verifies the same width of ninety feet! This is not a standard size for Masonic scenery.” It was rumored that a special building had been constructed to produce the extremely wide scenery and I had always wondered about the validity of that statement. If a special building had been created for this particular installation, the paint frame would have measured the same size as the drops. During my evaluation, I had not encountered enough scenery to justify the expense of new structure.
Toomey & Volland had built a new studio just prior to producing the St. Louis Scottish Rite scenery and I had recently acquired that image for my files. Six months earlier, I had discovered the Toomey & Volland’s advertisement depicting the construction of their 1922 studio.
This had been one of many unique finds at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas. That entire trip during October of 2016 continued to bear fruit for my own personal research projects.
I now added a photograph of a studio painting portions of a drop at a time. This was a process that I had read about and actually done myself when I had a limited paint area. For the St. Louis collection, it meant painting two-thirds of the drop and then shifting over the entire composition. Having done this for much smaller drops, I knew what a pain this must have been and marveled at the difficulty to shift a scene of that size. The photograph also showed the painting process as the scenic artist was working on the final part of the composition, the foreground.
Photographs of scenic artists painting scenery in studios are common. Finding the corresponding painted scene to accompany the photograph is unusual. What an exciting discovery! Here was one more find that contributed to the rich context surrounding the evolution of Scottish Rite scenery.
To be continued…
