When my wife died in the summer of 2025 every aspect of my life changed. It was a horrible time fraught with fear, anxiety, helplessness, grief, anger, and ultimately profound sorrow and loneliness. We didn’t know it for almost a year, but she was doomed from the day she first got sick. It took ten months for the idiot doctors at our terrible local hospitals to diagnose pancreatic cancer ---the worst of all cancers, the most painful, the least treatable with a 100 per cent fatality rate. I watched her take her last breath. I watched when they took her body away. As I filled out forms and signed documents at the funeral parlor, I realized that there was another document I’d have to re-write now she was gone and that was my own Will. I now had no one to leave anything to.
I’d been thinking about my Will before she died. After dealing with the deaths of my parents and being mostly written out of my parents’ will by my vindictive asshole father just before he took his life, I realized that as a life-long artist and not a ‘normal’ person I’d need a different sort of will. While most people’s wills deal with money, bank accounts, property and what to leave the kids, mine would be different. First, I don’t have children, so inheritance isn’t an issue. (I’ll likely have little money for anyone to inherit when I die.) But, for artists, we don’t really leave ‘inheritances,’ what artists leave behind after their mortal departures is an Artistic Legacy. My biggest fear is after my death someone I don’t know, who doesn’t care, or is willing to spend much time, is going to come into my studio and toss my life’s work into a dumpster. The original plan from all the previous Wills I’d written was to leave everything to my surviving wife. Now, with her gone I needed someone sensitive and familiar with the life of an artist to preserve my legacy. Luckily, I found that person in the form of a gallery curator, artist, writer and friend who is now written into the new will. He will be the administrator of my artistic and literary legacy. I’m comfortable with this person and I’m confident he’ll preserve my artistic legacy and hopefully make sure it is exhibited so others can see it. I know he won’t throw away my work.
I think any artist who’s put in the time, produced the artwork and was serious about their craft deserves to have their work seen and recognized posthumously. All serious artists deserve some kind of recognition in the form of a Retrospective Exhibition. It’s literally the Last Chance to see their art, conveniently, all in one place. A Retrospective shows the viewer who the artist was and their point of view.
Shortly after we moved to Prescott in the early 1990s, I began meeting and associating with local artists, musicians and most especially, other photographers. One of those photo- graphers was Ross Hilmoe. Ross it is agreed, was a character. He was a small guy, with long, straight hair that, once he grew it out after his military obligation, seemingly never cut it or changed style. A ‘forever hippie.’ Ross was a photographer but was especially renowned as a Master Black and White printer. His subject-matter was The West and his print quality rivaled what one would expect from Ansel Adams, Brett Weston or George Tice. In other words, good, classic American photography presented with the highest technical achievement that could come from a darkroom. Back in the darkroom I was a pretty darned good black and white printer myself, so Ross and I had much in common and, although we ran in different circles, we were friends for thirty years. During those thirty years, the digital revolution forever changed photography and what we did in the darkroom was supplanted by the desktop computer and, mainly, Adobe Photoshop. Ross did not board the digital bus. He continued to make prints for others until there was no one left with a negative. As his darkroom time waned so did his physical ability to work as Parkinson’s Disease took its toll on his body. A few months before what would have been his 80th birthday, he passed away in his sleep in an assisted living facility.
A mutual friend, who would be the Executor of Ross’ estate, called me with the sad news of Ross’ death. By the time Ross died I was already taking care of my wife who had gotten sick about four months before his passing, so I was already thinking along the lines of death, wills, legacy and artist retrospectives. I immediately asked the Executor if he was in possession of Ross’ photographic prints. He was. Are they of exhibition quality? Yes. Were some of the prints framed, ready for presentation? Yes. “Well then, “I told the executor, “We need to mount a retrospective exhibition of his photography so the community where he lived can see his life’s work.” The Executor was unsure, knowing that available and amenable exhibition spaces are hard to come by. “I know a guy.” I told him. “Let me talk to him and see what we can put together.” He gave me the go-ahead.
So, I had a conversation with my friend (who will be the administrator of my legacy when the time comes) who is currently the curator of the gallery at the local college, which also happens to be the most prestigious venue in town. After some negotiations he agreed to the Ross Hilmoe Retrospective Exhibition, but it would be in a year in the future as the gallery books up about twelve months in advance. The Executor wasn’t especially happy about the timing, but as a photographer himself, understood the logistics. He wanted to disburse Ross’ works to friends and family but agreed he could facilitate them loaning the prints to the gallery for a retrospective in a year.
We, or at least I, was excited to mount a very cool Retrospective for our absent friend. We began envisioning the prints on the wall. Oh, and we’d put his 4x5 camera on a tripod over here, put his Hasselblad on a pedestal over there and we’d bring in one of his enlargers to display. It would be a great remembrance of our friend and a glorious festival of handmade-analog black and white photography.
Then schoolhouse politics and other complications began to raise their ugly heads.
Early on came pushback from the Art Department Chairman (who is rather anti-photography, biased toward painting, printmaking and sculpture). He didn’t want to do a solo show but instead make it a Black and White Photography exhibition Featuring Ross Hilmoe. Already Ross’ prints were being disbursed and now the Executor wasn’t sure he’d be able to re-acquire them for a retrospective. With the number of guaranteed available prints dwindling, we agreed, and Ross would still get a show.
Then more pushback. Now all the Chairman would agree to would be, maybe, a wall for Ross during a group show and he would not be the featured artist. We were led to believe we had a deal, but that deal was getting shittier as time passed. And more and more of Ross’ prints were becoming unavailable. Compromise was becoming impossible and no one seemed to care or put much energy into aside from me, and I couldn’t carry the ball alone.
It all came to an unceremonious end when the Chairman decided since 2026 was the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence that the gallery should devote itself to political art for the season ---along with the usual forgettable faculty and student shows. And with that it ended. Ross would not get a retrospective. The community would have no opportunity to see a local deceased photographer’s legacy. I was frustrated, disappointed and sad for Ross. I feel he deserved more. We can’t have one last exhibition for the dead guy?
Now, during the time that would have been Ross’ exhibition there’s politically motivated drivel on the gallery walls and Ross’ photography has passed into obscurity. There was a nice Memorial for Ross where some of his photographs were on display, but nothing like a solo, retrospective exhibition. I was gifted an original, framed print by Ross which is now on permanent exhibition in my home (with a few other dead people’s artworks, hey at least I remember).
For me it was a personal failure and disappointment. I wanted to do something nice for a friend and was thwarted by short-sightedness and lack of interest. I was hoping to start a trend; all halfway decent local artists should receive some kind of retrospective exhibition posthumously at a local venue. Prescott is considered an ‘arts community’ after all.
Unlike inheritance, an artist leaves a legacy. I think this is important and meaningful. Very few artists expect their works to be forever unseen ---yes, we create for ourselves but also for other like-minded people. A good retrospective exhibition would show an artist’s progress and development from their early days to their end. The creative process deserves to be displayed and celebrated. The ‘Van Gogh’ effect is real. Consider Vivian Maier. No one in her lifetime saw her work and she didn’t even make prints. Every bit of recognition she got came after her death, from a person who recognized the value of her vision. Her work is brilliant and deserves to be seen, published and (even though not made by her hand) prints collected or become part of a museum’s archives.
Perhaps I’m sentimental. At minimum Ross’ prints should have been photographed for a retrospective book, but that didn’t happen because people were too busy, or the estate didn’t have enough cash, or mainly, nobody cared enough. I cared. I was the only person who suggested doing anything with Ross’ photography aside from putting a few pieces on easels at his memorial/celebration of life.
Life goes on and the Universe doesn’t care if any one person is alive to experience it. The art left behind by a deceased artist represents their footprints in life. It says to an otherwise distracted population, look, this person was here and while they existed, they left a mark, they created something unique. So, if there’s a footprint there, point it out, show it to us.
Most people don’t leave footprints. They’re born, they exist, most of them board the work-eat-sleep-repeat train and never really consider seriously what they’re doing or what they’ll leave behind. They don’t leave any footprints. They make no lasting contribution. It’s like they were never here. Six weeks after their death, their pets don’t even remember them.
When I die, please exhibit my work. Give me the exhibition I felt I deserved when I was alive but never got.
