Reed first visited the Campbell Ranch in April of 1938 at the recommendation of John Hilton. Hilton believed the ranch's ambiance would provide a flavorful setting for her work. The ranch's owner, Everett Campbell, had recently finished heading up a complete restoration of the Vallecito Butterfield station. Reed recalled nearly fifty years later how impressed she was with Campbell’s handiwork, commenting that he was an artist in his own right. She also became intrigued with the history of the route and “what a colorful project” the Butterfield Overland Stage had been. Her short three day stay on the ranch, combined with her meeting with William Banning, helped to create Reed's lifelong artistic mission.
Tracing the Butterfield Overland stage route through California, she created a series of thirty paintings, each one a representation of the various stage stations or other well known locations along the route. For authenticity, and to help realistically capture the essence of the route, Reed camped out near many of the stage stations she painted. The series was finished in 1958 while Reed was living in Julian, California. Three years later, twenty of the thirty paintings were purchased by James S. Copley, owner and publisher of the San Diego Union Tribune.
The success of the California collection led to a series of subsequent projects, portraying the Butterfield route from California eastward all the way to it’s origin in Tipton, Missouri. She completed a set of paintings for every state along the way: Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and finally Missouri. The final canvas was finished in 1982, over forty years after her meeting with Banning and her first stay at the Campbell ranch had inspired her to begin the journey.
Reed’s early start allowed her make her living as an artist for over sixty years. As a result she left behind a very large body of work. Although best known for her Butterfield paintings, her subject matter ranged from burros (which she raised most of her later life) to conquistadors to cowboys on bucking broncs and Western landscapes. She also painted “quite a lot of canyon scenes” and thousands of paintings with Navajo themes including a Trading Post series that was featured in Arizona Highways.
One of Reed's best known series is a large collection of canvasses that she signed "Harvey Day". Reed claimed in a letter the year before her death that she used her husband’s name because at the time there was so much demand for her work that “perhaps I could get a little break from a too busy life”. She also claimed that the paintings were created in the early 1940's, when Day had a job near the Grand Canyon. However the Harvey Day paintings were actually created in the mid-1950's, several years after Harvey Day's death. The series was the result of an arrangement with a Los Angeles importer/exporter who sold the paintings through a furniture store chain throughout the western United States. A different signature was used to avoid conflict with Reed's existing gallery obligations. The steady cash flow provided by the agreement provided the resources for Reed to devote her time and energy towards the completion of her first California Butterfield series.
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Arizona Sunset
24 x 36 Oil on Canvas Circa 1957
24 x 36 Oil on Canvas Circa 1962
Escort
24 x 36 Oil on Canvas Circa 1955