Sunset, Sunday, 1 November 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

The road ahead: Spread a map out on the table. Smooth offset stock turns to parchment, parchment changes to sand painting – to liquid crystal – to marble relief – to paper on fire. The roadmap divides into a stack of layers like phyllo dough, each evanescent crust a possibility, all related, each different. 

Sunset, Saturday, 31 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Our third consecutive cloudy evening. You can see all of October at a glance, here.

Sunset, Friday, 30 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Tomorrow, I hope, for Halloween: a few notes about Poe and the landscape around Charlottesville and perhaps a little something extra about a raven.

Sunset, Thursday, 29 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

When clouds roll in and take away the sun, everything, not just the sky, can seem occluded and a little difficult. A question lingers and never gets answered; a thought isn’t quite completed; a puzzle remains unsolved. As if, if only the sun would come out ...

Meanwhile, I’m driving along, radio plays a wacky doo-wop novelty by The Devotions, “Rip Van Winkle,” from ’64 (chorus reminds me, strangely, of “Dance Like A Monkey” by the New York Dolls). The song, by the way, comes complete with sound effects of elves cavorting around poor old Rip’s recumbent form.

At the last minute – above the mountains some light, the sun shows through. But instead of the answer, the thought, the solution, what it gives me is something that might be even better. Something like the punchline:

It doesn’t matter.

Sunset, Wednesday, 28 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Sunset, Monday, 26 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.