Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-05-25

! Kings and chiefs wore them and some
times the gods were dressed in them
In war times they were exacted az
tribute by conquering enemies. Now
only a few timeworn samples of the
AZtecs' skill remain in museums. The
Indians do a little feather work for
souvenirs, and tourists buy these be-
cause Of the association, but the art
is lost.
The Vision of An Artist
Mr.. Walters left London for New
York, but in his studio in Washington
Square he still thought of the subtle
atmosphere of the Aztec color work.
Artists all about him We're e~cstati-
cally turning out batik smooks and
lampshades, and they naturally began
the popular art of dyeing with wax.
He replied that he had a vision of
something SO ethereally beautiful that
batik with its erotic colors and set
designs had no attraction for him.
After taking this stand, there was
nothing for him to do but to try and
reproduce his vision.
Three years ago, he went TO the
artists colony at Woodstock, and set
to work in secret. He spent all of
his time experimenting with silks and
coloring methods, hoping always to
produce something that would give him
the same feeling of satisfaction that
the old Aztec mantle had given him.
Eventually he achieved his ambition.
The process, whether it includes dye
ing or painting with oils or water col
ors. he guards carefully. He explains
that he has put not only his fortune
but his heart and ambition into it. 1t
was evolved out of his w background
and interests, and the method as well
as the style of the art is therefore
an expression of his own personality.
Mr.. Walters has had n varied expert
ence with the arts. He has been q
violin student at Leipsic, a student Of
painting at Munich and Paris, and he
spent some time at Oxford delying into
the classics and studying the life of the
ancient Greeks. He invented a color
organ to establish a note scale of warm
and cold ~colors, and this scale he later
used as the foundation of his Aztec
color work.
Most of the silks in his exhibition
are meant for wall draperies or scarfs.
Long strips about Is inches wide and
seven or eight feet long hang on the
walls. They float in the breeze from
an open wondow and the ripple makes
tne cOlOrS more 1rlQeSPent.
1t Differs from Batik
Mr.. Walters explains that this flow
ing of the col0rs involves one of his
theories. He believes that sharply out
lined designs are not suitable for tex
tiles that are to be draped or allowed
TO float, because the design is lost
or distorted when the material falls
in folds. He believes that where folds
form the charm of decoration, the folds
ought to have free expression and
ought not to be interfered with by
hand designs, that the designs should
float into the folds. This is the rea-
son of the shadowy effects.
1t is not easy to describe anything
SO elusive as the colors in the varie-
sculptor of the Civic Virtue statue
which has so upset New York. calls
them a poet painter musicians vision
of color adapted to fabric. MacMon-
MES added, in a flight of poetic aban-
don, that they reminded him of glitter |
and simmer and sheen of dragon flies!
wings and pale sun risings and storm
blown gardens
There is one piece entitled Rain
The long strip has at top and
a shadowy green and blue lake
with slender reeds half visible in the
From these cool colors the sky
rises through rainbow tints to a vivid
orange sunset, and in the center of the
between the two scenes is the !
rainbow curving across
the sky.
Morning STAR is a blending of dark
green and blue suggesting the
at daybreak, lighted only by one
shaft of pale lemon colored light.
Summer is a silk hanging with a
background of sky blue shading into ,
rose. Delicate yellow flowers bloom
in the grass at the foot of the piece,
and above a single branch of a budding
tree stands put against the sky.
What the artist considers his mas
of textile decoration is a great
pink flamingo poised against an exotic
background. The flamingo ap-
peals to Mr.. Walters as the motif that
IS most beautiful and best adapted to
decoration in form and color. Much
AS Whistler used a butterfly, Mr.. Walt
Frs uses a swiftly sketched pink fla
ningo for his signature. With his pink
flamingo, his rainbow silks, and an
llluring touch of mystery, Mr.. Walters
has become the talk of the art colonies