A Shack on a Back Country Road in Arrington Va.

      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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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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The First Structure in Nelson County of European Settlers

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 I asked this local resident just what that old wooden structure was standing over yonder near some parked cars, she informed me that the wooden stack was the earliest home for Nelson County Residents back in the times when this county was established.   I couldn't believe it, you mean it was of that kind of historical value and it was simply a stand alone building in the backyard of one of Schuyler's residents with no markings of its significant value?   I had to paint it.   So I snapped a photo of it and took it home, then got to work.   Its simply the size of a small compact car only made of weathered wood.      To paint it took little time due to its small size.   I believe I will paint it again due to the feeling that it is owed some more attention that I have given it.   I also cropped some of the building off so I want to include that part in the next painting.
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Scottsville and Rt 6/ Rt 20 Intersection

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The very active intersection of Rt 6 w Rt 20 was the subject of my interest today. I set up around noon and worked with a few breaks from the sun for four hours. I felt as if I had gott'n off to a bad start but as I worked on this canvas I saw where it developed rather nicely into an unorthodox painting composi tion but I felt it worked. It worked well and so I left it alone and kept developing it into the canvas you see. I began with the buildings setting too far down past the midpoint of the latitude. I simply kept going but I almost just rubbed it all out to begin again. As I was taught and are many art students, to not begin unless one is totally confident of a good start to there canvas. One cannot build well unless one has a good foundation upon with to set his or her building, and this canvas was questionable at best when I got started. What I did was simply try something questionable and see what I could do with it. I actually felt some sense of being upset ...
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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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