Sunset, Sunday, 17 January 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

If someone you were very fond of was celebrating their 60th birthday, you too might dispense with caution and embarrassment, dust off Garageband, grab the Taylor 410 (for sale, if anyone’s interested), and look up the chords to “You’re Sixteen,” which was #8 when Johnny Burnette did it in 1960, and #1 when Ringo Starr covered it in 1974, apparently with help from Paul McCartney (on the kazoo?) and Harry Nilsson. Anyway, the chords, the changes, were a lot more interesting than I expected, no offense intended to those performers.

Then you might send that person a little song, including:

You stepped out of a dream
Off of the farm
Now you’re our Sandy divine
You’re sixty
So beautiful
And so fine

She really did come right from the farm.

You also might try to make sure that ‘her’ sunset, even though it’s been raining all day, didn’t look like a complete washout.

Sunset, Saturday, 16 January 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Old Rag from Obannons Mill Road, Rappahannock County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

This is my second sunset that included a view of Old Rag; the other, back on June 21st, was from farther east and south, at Locust Dale. This perspective is near a house we’ve been hoping to be able to buy ... still working on it. Painting Old Rag every day – that’d be a drag, right?

Sunset, Friday, 15 January 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Happy Birthday, MLK. My parents – even my parents made us shut up and listen to that speech, on the radio on the way back from the beach.

Following from yesterday’s mention of Andy Warhol: Something I appreciated, as a painter and in a larger way as an artist, was Louis Menand’s essay on Warhol in the January 11th New Yorker. While commenting, more or less, on recent books about Warhol, Menand manages to distill the history of contemporary art criticism. For anyone like me who missed the meeting about Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art and what has come after, it’s a brilliantly accessible and illuminating short course. 

Sunset, Thursday, 14 January 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

A recent excursion to the very fun letterheady.com (collecting all kinds of notable stationery – my personal favorite so far is Hal Roach Studios) included the 1960s letterhead used by the Rolling Stones. I was telling friends how much I liked the 1969 letter from Mick Jagger to Andy Warhol I saw when I visited the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. That letter can be found at lettersofnote.com.

I’m afraid I’m going to get nostalgic here. The letterheads, along with the offhand intelligent charm of the typewritten Jagger note, reminded me of the “good old days” of New York publishing, when I’d encounter correspondence like this all the time.

Yes, cut this post open – you can count the rings, quite a few of them.

Update on Friday, January 15, 2010 at 06:32PM by BVD

One note about letterheady.com – I could do without the Adolf Hitler stationery. I don’t think there’s any reason to display it, except perhaps in a true museum context.

Sunset, Wednesday, 13 January 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

One of those sunsets that seems to drain the sky of color. Some days leave without quite saying good-bye.

Sunset, Tuesday, 12 January 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

At an intersection today when a massive bassline erupted from a car behind me. I think everyone had their windows up (35°F), so it wasn’t at any sort of pain threshold, but it was all the more impressive for that reason. It was a deep rolling subterranean temblor that traveled right up your brainstem and out your follicles. It was a bass that could style your hair.

I had just been listening to Robert Johnson and wondered what Bob would think if he were at the crossroads and heard this. But now on another channel I had Conway Twitty singing “It’s Only Make Believe,” and at times the oncoming waves of bass broke perfectly underneath the lines of the song. I have to tell you: It was fantastic. “It’s Only Make Believe” with a huge bassline could be something truly awesomely fine.