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;

Japanese Paintings On Display

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The show is up. Many of my paintings were hung up yesterday, and there was nothing like seeing all of them up and together where I or anyone could see them all together and view them all at the same time. It was quite something. The opening will be this coming Friday evening but they hung them all up yesterday. It was a couple of dedicated women who hung all the work in the gallery. The Virginia Artist In Action has treated me well, they welcomed me into their gallery and have done a good job showing my artwork to the local area. I have nothing but good things to say about them because of their hard work to promote my art. Now I feel like I have to make as many newer paintings as there are hanging on the walls of the VAIA gallery. I'm kind of obsessive about doing paintings and having a good number of new ones accessible to the galleries or otherwise ready to show to the public. I have to learn to be happy with just what I have and what I have spent the last...
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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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"KIdd's Store: #3"

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I've had troubles getting the lowdown view of this isolated country store w gas and sandwiches to go, the first two paintings were just down the tubes as far as visual interest. This one is better. I took in the outter view of cushion value of distancing around the store itself, and I think I won with a better feel to this scene. The station is buffeted by some space around it and distance too. Its a little better to view when there is some breathing room around it and not jammed into a small canvas space. I like the cars a little better in this one as well as leaving some visual detect-ability of the painting methods I used in creating this version of "Kidd's Store (#3)". Hope your entertained with its intensity and spacial relief.
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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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