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.

Comments

Post a Comment

What Has Worked;

What a Good Day For a Feast

Image
I enjoy the Holiday's but they seem so empty of people. The town empties out because everyone is with there family outside of this place at least this place is emptied out. I'm not feeling alone though. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving feast at my workplace with our students. It was the very best meal of the year for me. Our staff puts it together and they do an outstanding job every year. I get away with buying some freshly made rolls from a local bakery. It's not much in comparison to others efforts in making the feast as good as it is but it is enjoyed none the less. It really great to see our students all together eating, talking and enjoying some really good food. I am headed out to Earlysville to enjoy another feast today with an artist friend and his family. I will be fun. Ten of my paintings will be featured in a show called "Comic Apparition" at a restaurant in Richmond by the name of "Positive Vibe " that is run (all emplo...
Read more

Winding Up This Summer's Artwork

Image
The Summer is coming to a close for me, with schools reopening I will be going back to work starting this Friday morning. Our beloved students will return the following Wednesday. I can say that it's been a very active summer for me with me finishing many painting during this break and joyfully I loved making each one. The big change has been feeling good about the work I have done both once they were done and also while they were in the 'cooker' where I was active in the making of them. This summer I focused on making 'overall looks' to the scenes which I painted partial storefronts of last summer. Those were mere studies ( or preparations ) for what I had in mind and it was a long wait during the school year '09-'10 until I could get to them this past two months of late June, July and early August. I say two months because I both took some time to see distant places and I count June and August as only half month's work time on this summer...
Read more

Those Missing Florida Votes

Image
Remember the election of 2004 when they announced that they were missing 10's of thousands of votes from a mostly black precient in Florida, I was wondering how that happened and just where did those votes go. So I came up with this cartoon while wondering about it. I suppose anything could have happened but as it turned out that many votes could have turned the election of George W. Bush over to Al Gore if they had been counted, that is if those votes really were lost to the winds and not counted. I only heard one account of it on the news back then, I wonder if it was true or not. I never really heard much more about it.
Read more

Scottsville Intersection; Rt. 20 w Rt. 6

Image
A small work I put together in the last few days is coming from a photo taken in Scottsville, Va. I am working moreso on photos this summer indoors to see if I can convincingly operate on oils out of my front living-room. So far so good. I think I've overcome what happens to too many 'photo realist' (and I don't count myself as one I am simply using a photograph to work from) in that there final product has a very flat quality to its depth as a painting. I'm not against photo realist, by no means I like there work and the clarity that some achieve is unbeatable : not including someone such as Vermeer who's brilliance outshines us even today with his clarity of his images in oil. The thing I want to avoid in painting from a photograph is not seeing around the angle or missing an items volume as an object in space. An item with volume is one that has the intent of roundness or a 3-dimensional shape implied in its rendering, that is what visual work I wa...
Read more

Preedy Creek Trails

After a terrific bike ride on in the northern most part of the county of Albemarle where I live, I had to get a burger fix right away. "Five Guy" right after finishing up on this trail the Preedy Trail Park where I spent over a half an hour doing their loop. It was challenging but nothing too too much of a hazard for me to navigate. One needed to look ahead and see how to gear their bike for the terrain ahead but it clearly could be managed with some lightweight hardware and some nerve. The fun was that they built in some good up/down short hops all over the place and they put them in lines of three and four hops per run. Outstanding work whomever designed it, and my hats off to those men who did the grunt work of making it fit into the landscape by working with the hilly land around them. I ran into some disappointed dog owners who felt they were put off by having to have a leash around their dog's collar but man for the sake of some great biking trails it ...
Read more