There is nothing like a group of loving caring people for a good Thanksgiving dinner...which is what I enjoyed tonight. It's the meaning of friends and family that one can comprehend in times like these pictured here.
Posted by Picasa

Comments

Post a Comment

What Has Worked;

Hut for a Blue Tractor and a Red Grass-Cutter

Image
     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'...
Read more

A Shack on a Back Country Road in Arrington Va.

Image
      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.
Read more

The People of Japan

I just finished another in my Japanese Experience paintings yesterday evening, it looks like a good painting of a Buddhist Celebration Parade. I've enjoyed paintings from my past spent in Japan when I was their with my parents during the 1950's. I certainly never thought I would be painting my childhood. When I was small and living in that foreign country, I found the people to be really nice to me and the land was very beautifully kept. People would go out into the streets to sweep the dirt just to clean up their area outside their home just because it was needed. The people had a true commitment towards the public good of the community and I noticed that even at the young age that I was during the 1950's. This painting I finished is bright and cheerful because it is a depiction of an event where the people were celebrating the beginning of a New Year, and they were hopeful. I will have a photo of it up on my site soon.
Read more

The Holland Farm Chicken House in Arrington Va.

Image
    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.  
Read more

Remains of an Early Virginian Church

Image
 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. 
Read more