Cowflop from the Adams Herd (5)

In my last post, I highlighted the lie at the heart of William “Wild Bill” Turnage’s demand for partisan participation by the Center for Creative Photography in the Ansel Adams Trust’s conflict with Team Norsigian over the disputed glass-plate negatives. Now let’s look at the Pinocchio moments in David Walker’s interview with Turnage, “Slander Suit Over Garage Sale Negatives Reveals Rift Inside Ansel Adams Camp,” published in Photo District News on January 26, 2011.

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As Walker puts it in his opening paragraphs, “Norsigian’s slander suit has uncovered a nasty rift between Turnage and the staff of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona.” On August 15, Turnage wrote “This [the statement re those negatives issued by the CCP bearing CCP Director Katharine Martinez’s signature] is a cynical BS copout. . . . I will be writing Martinez a letter she will not forget. I will be ending my 34 years of support and assistance for the CCP and will become a public critic in SF and NYC. I am appalled and disgusted by this cowardice and excuse-making. . . . PS – We will subpoena Leslie and Becky [Leslie Calmes and Rebecca Senf, both CCP staffers].”

University of Arizona President Emeritus John P. Schaefer

Turnage addressed and sent this email to Martinez, but claims in Walker’s article that he intended it for John P. Schaefer only, which seems likely given the third-party reference to Martinez therein. Oops. So he confesses tacitly that he was machinating behind the scenes, conspiring with Schaefer ― his colleague at the Adams Trust and also co-chair of the CCP’s Board of Fellows, a blatant conflict of interest, as this situation makes clear ― to subvert the authority of Martinez, the pair of them blackmailing the CCP and the UofA into making some kind of public statement in support of the Adams Trust’s lawsuit against Team Norsigian.

What gored Turnage’s ox was that the CCP had in fact caved to his pressure ― but not sufficiently to satisfy him ― by issuing a statement on August 27th titled “A Message From the Director.” Signed by Martinez, it read, in part, “We have no reason to believe that these negatives are, in fact, the work of Ansel Adams, and we support the efforts of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust to protect its rights in this matter.” There’s every reason to assume that this position paper was published at the insistence of Carla Stoffle, Dean of the UofA Libraries, over the objection of Martinez, who resisted the idea of the CCP making any kind of public statement or taking sides in the fight.

Katharine Martinez, incoming CCP Director.

(Note: This statement, drafted not by Martinez but by the University of Arizona’s Office of General Counsel, appeared on the main page of the CCP’s website on August 27, 2010. It has since vanished therefrom without a trace, and without explanation. The link above will take you to a PDF version thereof that I archived, which I certify as a complete, unaltered copy of that web publication.)

Walker writes, “Turnage told PDN that he has since apologized to CCP director Katharine Martinez for his outburst, that last summer’s ‘misunderstanding’ has blown over, and that the Ansel Adams Trust and CCP continue to have ‘an excellent relationship. . . . I was just blowing off steam,’ he says. ‘Everything was smoothed over.'”

There’s no misunderstanding here whatsoever ― another Turnage prevarication. Martinez made her position clear, as “Wild Bill” did with his. Someone at the UofA blinked, most likely Stoffle, Martinez’s superior; perhaps Schaefer, with his divided loyalties, put his clout behind the Trust, pressuring Stoffle to try to placate Turnage.

Walker continues, “The e-mails between Turnage and the CCP form the basis of Norsigian’s conspiracy claim against the [sic] Turnage and the Trust. Norsigian obtained the e-mails through a Freedom of Information Request, according to Turnage, who explained that the University of Arizona was obligated to honor the request because it is a state-run institution.” A savvy move by Norsigian attorney Arnold Peter, who I suspect will continue digging. More emails and phone records will likely emerge as this case moves forward, and first-person testimony at the trial will eventually flesh out this already fascinating paper trail.

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Walker reports that “in discussing the e-mail exchanges and the Ansel Adams Trust’s relationship with CCP, Turnage insisted that he wasn’t pressing the CCP to say that Adams didn’t create the found negatives.” But Martinez’s synopsis of her phone conversation with Turnage, in her July 27 email to Schaefer and Dildine, directly contradicts Turnage’s plea of innocence. (Martinez wrote, “[Turnage] said it was ‘essential’ for CCP staff to talk with the press to say that ‘lost’ negatives are not Adams negatives. Bill said that it was essential in order to defend the ‘integrity and reputation’ of the Center.”) One of them’s lying, and I’d pick Turnage, who has every legal and financial motive to fabricate a belated alibi, over Martinez, who had no reason to falsify her account of her conversation with him right after it took place.

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Dean Carla J. Stoffle

Walker continues, “Turnage told Dean of Libraries Carla Stoffle in an e-mail that the statement [the CCP’s statement about the Norsigian negatives] was too little, too late. Stoffle fired back, ‘You got the best we can do and are going to do. Probably more than we should have. There is nothing in the deed of gift that says we have to hire people who can authenticate negatives or images.'” (Apparently Stoffle re-located the spine she’d misplaced ― though not before its temporary absence allowed a serious loss of face for herself, Martinez, the CCP, and the UofA by doing way “more than they should have,” thus letting them all in for the unanticipated pleasures of participation as defendants in Team Norsigian’s countersuit.) The story goes on to recount, “Turnage now says his threat to withdraw support from the CCP was ‘meaningless’ because there’s nothing besides moral support that the Trust could withdraw. Trustees cannot change a trust provision that provides 10 percent of the Trust’s publishing royalties to the CCP, Turnage says.”

In short, Turnage ― who earns his handsome salary from the Trust on the presumption that he understands what a Trust’s regulations do and don’t allow ― didn’t know that a trustee can’t revoke a Trust’s provisions on whim. (Note to Anne Adams Helms and Michael Helms: This is embarrassing. Totally. Give the poor guy a raise, so he can afford a night-school cram course in trust management and trust law.) Thus, while Turnage clearly didn’t intend his attack on Martinez and the CCP as ineffectual, it turned out that way ― due to his ignorance and professional incompetence. Which inefficacy he now claims as a defense. The mind boggles.

This is deeply meaningful, not “meaningless,” as Turnage claims. Especially because, to some extent, the threat worked. The CCP did issue a statement, however guarded and vague. The evidence of this bowing to blackmail has now gone public. Colluding with Turnage and the Adams Trust even to that extent has not only tainted the academic integrity of the CCP and the UofA but has dragged those institutions into the federal lawsuit in which Team Norsigian has named them as co-conspirators. That may have no meaning to Turnage, but it has great significance to some of us onlookers. And it certainly means something to the CCP and the UofA. (The Adams Trust, please note, has not yet offered to reimburse those institutions for the legal costs they’ll incur as a direct result of Turnage’s tantrum.)

Moreover, Turnage threatened not only to “end my 34 years of support and assistance for the CCP” but also to “become a public critic [of the CCP] in SF and NYC.” In short, in his official role as Managing Trustee of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust he’d go around badmouthing the CCP to all and sundry in two of the major photography locales in the U.S. Additionally, he vowed to subpoena two CCP staffers, not an idle threat either. Those aren’t empty warnings, and there’s not a single soul in the entire international photo community who would consider the making of them “meaningless.” Another major fib.

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Finally ― and this one takes the breath away ― Walker’s story concludes with this quote from Turnage: “I love the CCP and I think they love me. None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for that misdirected e-mail.” In other words, if he hadn’t gotten so choleric that he accidentally sent his enraged email to Martinez instead of his co-conspirator Schaefer, no one would be the wiser.

But that’s just not true ― and Turnage knows it. The CCP’s publication at its website of the incriminating statement took place before, not after, “Wild Bill” shot his wad at Martinez; and he surely intended a bull’s-eye, not a misfire. His “misdirecting” of that email did not lead Arnold Peter to the evidence Norsigian’s intrepid attorney uncovered of this underhanded backstage maneuvering; Peter sussed out the existence of that paper/pixel trail on his own, getting to it not via any leak from the CCP or the UofA but by an FOIA requisition. And it’s as a direct result of Turnage’s peremptory demand for that public statement that the CCP now faces charges in Federal District Court in San Francisco. In other words, it all would have happened exactly as it did even if he hadn’t “misdirected” his wrathful missive.

As for “I love the CCP and I think they love me” ― here we enter the territory of either the terminally cynical or the profoundly delusional. Sure, Bill. All is forgiven ― your secretive conniving with your fellow trustees and some members of the CCP’s Board of Fellows, your corruption of the academic integrity of the CCP and the UofA, your humiliating disenfranchisement of Martinez and undermining of her authority and reputation during her first month in office, your bullyboy suborning of potentially illegal behavior, your pulling the CCP and the UofA into the expense and bad publicity of a federal lawsuit. Water under the bridge. C’mon down to Tucson for a much-needed vacation; you and Johnny Schaefer and Kathy Martinez and Carla “Big D” Stoffle can hang at the pool in your swimsuits, with lots of backslapping and laughter and nachos and Gran Patron Platinum jello shots. It’s all good. One big happy family. Can’t wait to see you again. (P.S. We much appreciated the flowers, the fruit baskets, and the cases of vintage Napa merlot.)

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William Turnage, managing trustee, Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

The air is thick with the smell of burning pants. This truckload of deceitful rubbish comes, I remind you, from a man who had the gall last summer to compare Team Norsigian’s claims to the Nazi “big lie” technique. Turnage’s so full of evasions, half-truths, and outright falsehoods I’m tempted to say that if his lips are moving, he’s lying.

This is one seriously sick puppy. Someone needs to worm and de-louse him ― and keep him in the doghouse until he’s all better. Certainly he shouldn’t be allowed to run a trust when he’s proven himself so untrustworthy. If he had any sense of honor, he’d resign. But he now needs the Trust’s money to defend himself against the countersuit. He’s not going anywhere soon, not of his own volition. As Randy Newman sings, “It’s money that matters.” More than anyone’s honor, obviously, in this situation.

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For an index of links to all previous posts related to this story, click here.