Charlottesville : The Cityscape of Change

Life and death in the country can all happen on one plot of land. This painting of two barns has another added part to the composition that I left out due to it sitting alone by itself off to the right of the smaller barn. Four graves lye not far from that outbuilding. To me that spoke of family ties to the land where the barns now lye abandoned and falling apart in ongoing decay. I chose to leave it out. I felt the barns were a testament enough to those who worked that piece of land. This place is on a back country road that is bucolic and full of flowers. I feel good whenever I pass by it on my way home using that particular old roadway. Its a place that called out to me to be remembered in paint, and so this work came about.

I do admire drawings that one can easily see are done for the fun of it and nothing more than that. This is one of those kind of ad-hoc committee of my mind getting together and just throwing out something completely nonsensical. I hope you enjoy it. And yes I do admire R. Crumb's artwork and I wish I had met him. He lived in North Philly in the 1970's and I lived in West Philly during the same time period. His work is the funniest, most observant of city life then I've ever seen.

A concert hall is always of interest in the memories who have seen starpower performances take place in its interior. Because of that fact I have painted this canvas using the sight of 'South Street' bar/music venue as a subject for its surface. This building and the pink warehouse beside it are both etched into the memories of music lovers of the city of Charlottesville. The pink warehouse was the sight for practice sessions of the Dave Mathews Band in its early days when it played in local stages. The 'South Street' bar has drawn many bands of late and is a fixture in the local music scene. Both buildings are on a street nearby the railroad tracks and were used to hold commercial products from trains delivered to this city. I found working all the color in the bricks to be the challenge. The windows also were daunting but could be worked into a suitable appearance once I put myself into the task mode of using changing color for each pane of glass withi…