Landscape of Virginia

Upon our early springlike weather I popped out and put up my easel with canvas upon a local avenue that is titled :"Belmont Ave", it is here where I did a preliminary drawing before rendering it in oils this past Sunday. I have yet to photograph the oil painting but I did have this pen and ink which I will post. It's going to be a pleasure to get out once again into the elements with my equipment and in such accommodating weather it is very pleasurable to work in the outdoor air, and sun here in Charlottesville. I am hoping to get something done this spring break or the very first week in April, but we will wait and see....one never knows in this ever changing world with all the problems we have, have had, and will be having that are not even known about now. I know that the truth is always subject to revision when it comes to making plans for my future. I've learned to just put somethings aside of my own self interest for the sake of the common good of

I have been sincerely touched by the events in my hometown overseas of Yokohama Japan where I went to school in my first three years of educational training. Back then there were mostly dirt roads and that city was nothing more than a Navel base and a departing point of overseas cruse ships. The thing that got me was when I saw NBC nightly news showing footage of Yokohama crumbling before people running in haste to save themselves from being crushed by falling debris. It was very disconcerting for me. I may not be Japanese or have a vested interest in that country at this point but the thought hit me that some of those people who were running from the falling bricks could have easily been childhood playmates of mine. I lived not on base as most Americans did but in a Japanese town by the name of Kamahira, we lived among the people of Japan from 1950 to 1959 which at the time was rather daring. In order to play after school I soon learned that I had to make Japanese friends, an