A gold framed watercolor of an isolated beach was the only painting that hung on the wall of the studio/workshop. It bore no resemblance to either the pure Sierra landscapes painted by William Keith -- Into the Yosemite Valley; Mokelumne River, High Sierras -- or the color-laden wild brushstrokes of an Oakland environment that still lived in the work of the Society of Six -- Louis Siegriest's painting of Selden Gile’s cabin; Joaquin Miller's house painted by Gile himself.

Instead, the watercolor scenes that came to Caydance’s mind were works that might be seen on the easel of any plein air painter of the era -- even those painted in the 1950's by a young Wayne Thiebaud. Except there was a vitality that distinguished both the workshop wall watercolor and Thiebaud's early work -- hinting of a future that wasn't yet there.

In the studio/workshop watercolor, a horizontal long flat line of deserted beach stretched across the paper. In the background, rugged sand dunes were pierced with occasional patches of gray flat brushstrokes. As if it was a history that existed in the artist's memory, a faint lush-green line hovered unnaturally above the dunes. The sky was gray. arrow The artist’s signature was unreadable, but because of the obvious cedilla in the first name, she assumed it was French.