Anniversary...a Touchstone of Recovery


15 yrs without mindaltering substances today...thankful for life today and all the people in it, even those with which I don't see eye to eye...only though a program of Recovery has it been possible.

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What Has Worked;

Hut for a Blue Tractor and a Red Grass-Cutter

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     Many of these farm structures that I live around out here in Central Virginia near Lovingston are made from wood that has been recycled from earlier farm buildings.   I am almost certain that a lot if it may just go back to the early days of European settlers locating here in Schuyler.   One can just take a quick look and even without carbon-dating one can see that the wood is old and weathered by the elements.   It is very heavy older hardwood that these folks used in making their farm structures.   One can also see how the buildings were shaped for the needs of the farm at a time and then torn down but not discarded but reused again for another purpose..   The sizes of the buildings are small.   They may house one farm implement or two but they are not like those northern Atlantic barns that have lofts and large areas for animals, these buildings are built to suite a single purpose and generally aren'...
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A Shack on a Back Country Road in Arrington Va.

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      This country home was sitting by the side of Arrington Road and I felt it has some history within its walls.   Its a small place buy yet it had a satellite dish on it so there must have been sometime spent indoors watching the world through a TV.   I worked on giving it some life by working with the texture on the wood panels that made up its walls.  People survived by living within it.   It is humbling.
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The Holland Farm Chicken House in Arrington Va.

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    This piece of land has more to be explored from what I have been able to discern from the local neighbors.   I've only photographed what I can see from Arrington Road nearby where the Locken Music Festival is held in the summer.   There are three buildings I have been able to study so far with more that are out of sight.   I am interested due to the age of some of these abandoned farm buildings.   I was told that this one is a 'chicken house' for the Holland farm.   Its not in operation anymore but it must have held a good number of the foul in its heyday.   This is an oil.  I use a 30/30/30 medium with sunthickened linseed oil going by the name Stand oil.   Its small, only 14 inches by 26 inches in size with a popular wood lattice frame slapped on it.  
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Remains of an Early Virginian Church

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 The old world of European faith was rife with change when new varieties of religion left the old continent for the America's open horizons.   These remains of an older mud stone Church is still here in Central Virginia near where the Lock'n Music festival takes place, only but a mile or so to the east it still stands in its muddy sandstone way.   I didn't find out much more than it was a Church at one time where people placed their wants and needs on the Altar to the keep of a Higher Power.   I don't know what faith these remains belonged to but knowing the society around here it no doubt was a early Virginian Christian Church. 
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The Barn on the Holland Farm

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    This building had been painted earlier, just not from this angle.   I took a top downward look in this composition in oil.    I liked the perspective of the fence running downhill and swooping around into the back of the barn.   I was thinking that I had made an error in judgement when I painted the one side of the barn in shadow, but after working moreso I saw that it seemed to work since the shade is marked with details of the wooden doors, and other details worked out in blues and dark browns.   As they say, getting some distance by letting it sit for a while without me looking at it allowed me to really see that what I had done was ok in fact it worked pretty well.       I feel that this canvas is successful, but its one that a person needs to take a good look at what one is seeing before deciding if it works as a work of art or not.   You don't want to just gloss over it with a quick ...
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