Landscape of Virginia

An old long enduring year comes to a close and new possibilities open up with the start of a New Year starting tonight. It's all looking like a good one to come. I have some good ideas for coming paintings, I think I got a good lead on subject matter for my work. I am planning to do a number of paintings focusing on my father's Japanese photographs that he took while we lived in Kamahura and I was but a new guy on the block. I have done four so far and I am happy with the results. I'm hoping to get a good number of them together and then put on a show of them as a group with copies of the original photos just beside them with a short description of what's going on within the photo or what I might remember of the time when it was taken. While painting I could sometimes remember what the weather was like that day or what it sounded like when that photo was taken. All the memories were gone until I began studying them when I was painting, then some "flashback...

I'd have to say that I enjoy our Open House at the school house I work at more and more every year. I've only been there for four years now but I enjoy this time more than most any other time of year because of all the returning students and because I know the new students that we have because I've worked with them at one time or another since September. It's a celebration where we invite any and all who would like to see our program and it's quarters up-close and personal as easily as opening the door and coming in. We throw a party more or less, and we have a good time with staff and students alike. All the teachers go all out getting out their best dishes and cuisine for this occasion. All in all it's a good time. I took pictures this year and I have put one on the heading of this posting. If it wasn't for the joyfulness with which I work, I don't think I would have been working nearly as long as I have during this past decade.

Getting ready for the Holiday of Christmas reminds me of my parents and the good times we had during those days back in the nineteen sixties in Alexandria Va when the snow covered the cars. We were socked in and it was warm with the Tree's lights just shinning on the snowdrift right outside our bay window in the middle of the night at Christmas time. What a memorable site it was for me as a teenager to see and enjoy, one of those "Kodak Moments" I suppose, either way I do remember how beautiful those nights and days of the heavy snows were for me. I had a great deal of fun going out and walking our family dog in the seemingly huge snowdrifts when he would jump in and out of the snow playing leapfrog from spot to spot just for the hell o' it. I heard that Massachusetts is getting that kind of snow tonight. I wish I was in it in some weird moments, but then I remember that I moved here because the harsh winter weather of just three hundred miles north of here in...

I believe education should reach the Disabled and Handicapped as it does all those who are able bodied and mentally sound. Colleges and Universities aught to open their doors to students with disabilities who otherwise won't be exposed to the knowledge taught to others who pay the price of admission. I feel testing could be altered to be appropriate for that population or no testing at all but an introduction to the subjects taught to other students. I think the students I teach would really get a lot out of the learning process on the college level. Art could be taught by having the students exposed to slides and videos of art and artist of days gone by and could be given a chance to work with the same materials that able bodied students work with in the classroom today. The students would be given a parentage of tuition since they will not get a degree but could be given a certificate of accomplishment granted by a University or College they have attended. I don...