Sunset, Saturday, 30 May 2009

Westminster, Md. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.This is a suburban sunset – the view is from my brother Steve’s front yard in Westminster, Maryland. But just a mile or so behind me is the pretty little nineteenth century commercial-industrial town itself. What occurred to me about Westminster, after writing about the Confederate sympathies of Baltimore, is that it’s one of the first towns on this side of Maryland, going north, where Johnny Reb might have had to watch his back when dealing with civilians. For me, it more or less marks an entryway into a northern, Union, Yankee feeling. My brother is basically a Southerner and his wife Sandy most definitely is one, but I’m not talking so much about who might be living here now as about a history that you can feel and even see in the old brick buildings. A Barbara Fritchie could just as easily have waved Old Glory from a balcony in Westminster as in Frederick.