The man whose photograph appeared in the studio/workshop -- housed in a library file box hand-labeled "Society of Six" -- looked back at Caydance, as if the photograph was not only of the painter Selden Gile as a young man but also was a meaningful connection to the occupant of the abandoned studio.
On the day when she first entered the abandoned studio workshop, it was that image that came into her mind. Probably it appeared in Nancy Boas' book on The Society of Six, recently published by Bedford Arts. But, when, like a ghost image, it entered her mind, she did not immediately recognize that it was born on a Maine farm artist Selden Gile, a man who hiked and painted in the Oakland Hills and rode and drank with Jack London.
Gile's cabin was where the group of painters known as the Society of Six came together. On weekends, at informal dinners cooked by Gile himself, they propped their work around the cabin walls, drank homebrew and red wine, talked art.
Selden Gile died in Tiburon, Caydance recollected. A depth chart of The Society of Six included, in addition to Gile, the artists August Gay, from the mountains of Southeast France; Louis Siegriest; Maurice Logan, William Clapp, born in Montreal; and Bernard Von Eichman. They lived and worked in California, beginning in the years before World War I.
