Sunset, Thursday, 16 July 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Actual random soundtrack for the process of this painting included “She’s Coming Home” (Zombies) (she was, even though she worked late), “Annie Get Your Gun” (Squeeze), “Sh-Boom” (The Chords), “Phonograph Blues” (RJ), “I’m Gonna Love You Too” (Buddy Holly), “The Luck Of The Irish” (John Lennon), “Watch The Tapes” (LCD Soundsystem), but no “Twilight Time” even though there were two completely different spectacular twilight skies right after this one – and, most appropriately, “Virginia” (Clipse), which includes a reference to “heat like Caribbean summers.”

Indeed.

Sunset, Wednesday, 15 July 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

The sunset sky changed its story three times in 30 minutes, altered its address, login and password, effaced its Facebook account, sold all of its stuff in a yard sale down here on Watts Passage, and left without telling me what I wanted to know. I finally found it staying under an assumed name at a boarding house in Bristol, Tennessee, in a room with a spectacular view of itself.

Twilight, Tuesday, 14 July 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset (Twilight) from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on linen, 16 x 20.

As mentioned in the previous post, the long progression from sunset through twilight was truly strange. A glowing band of cream-orange yellow eventually became very nearly orange, with an abrupt demarcation between the bright band and an unusual, ever darker, but still radiant blue. Against this, clouds were a raven-like purple-black. Could have been a Raveonettes sky. It could be interpreted as strange and ominous, but I decided it was strange and luminous.

Sunset, Tuesday, 14 July 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Dedicated to the vainqueurs of the Bastille. I think we in the States tend to minimize Bastille Day (my birthday!) because we always hear that the prison wasn’t necessarily that important, the storming of the place wasn’t such a big deal, etc. – so I was surprised to learn that 98 of the liberators were killed that day.

Tonight’s sunset was followed by one of the strangest twilights I think I’ve ever seen. If I feel I can remember the composition and the colors well enough, I may add it tomorrow.

Sunset, Monday, 13 July 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

True, the sky was a little ‘different’ tonight, but so were some of the thoughts behind painting it – a new development in the series. More about this, I hope, tomorrow – Bastille Day.

Sunset, Sunday, 12 July 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

The best thing about yesterday’s visit to Frederick, after the lunch, was going to the Delaplaine Center for the Arts. What a place! Along with the beautiful Carroll Creek “linear park” and the trompe-l’oeil Community Bridge mural project, the Delaplaine makes you wonder how a town of 60,000 can possibly do so much. 

The Delaplaine was featuring its regional juried exhibit (closing on the 19th) and an exhibition, ‘Urban Landscapes’, by Stephen Hay. We only had time for the large regional exhibit, but I sensed, on the way out, that I had missed something by not going through the Hay show as well, and a visit to his site confirmed that for me.

In the juried show, I was struck by many things, including the works of Robert Stuart Cohen, who does mesmerizing semi-abstractions using repeated brocade-like patterns. His painting ‘The Yellow Box’ made a big impression on me, partly because the title added a third dimension to what might otherwise have been perceived as a (phenomenally complex) two-dimensional design – the ‘yellow box’ became for me like a marble sarcophagus or holy object, an ark.

But all four of us ultimately were glued to the works of Michael Douglas Jones of Damascus, Maryland – and I’m glad I have links I can give you, because they’re difficult to describe. Even when you first see them and think they’re collages of found objects – albeit rare ones from past centuries – they’re remarkable. As you keep looking and realize that Jones has created these objects or made them what they are – they become nothing short of amazing.

For me, the significance of the Delaplaine – this was my second or third visit – is the sense that it gives me of the Frederick art community as open and expansive. It somehow avoids the insularity or cliquishness you find in other places. Further, it’s not elitist, yet it avoids elitism without pandering or compromise. 

Another town of this size, this close to major cities (Frederick is in some ways a satellite of both Washington and Baltimore), could become drained of identity. A town in Virginia with a similar name, last time I checked had long suffered that fate (in relation to Washington). Residents sometimes call that place ‘Dead Fred.’ I can’t imagine people saying the same about the Fred in Maryland.