Twilight, Tuesday, 14 July 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset (Twilight) from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on linen, 16 x 20.

As mentioned in the previous post, the long progression from sunset through twilight was truly strange. A glowing band of cream-orange yellow eventually became very nearly orange, with an abrupt demarcation between the bright band and an unusual, ever darker, but still radiant blue. Against this, clouds were a raven-like purple-black. Could have been a Raveonettes sky. It could be interpreted as strange and ominous, but I decided it was strange and luminous.

Sunset, Tuesday, 14 July 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Dedicated to the vainqueurs of the Bastille. I think we in the States tend to minimize Bastille Day (my birthday!) because we always hear that the prison wasn’t necessarily that important, the storming of the place wasn’t such a big deal, etc. – so I was surprised to learn that 98 of the liberators were killed that day.

Tonight’s sunset was followed by one of the strangest twilights I think I’ve ever seen. If I feel I can remember the composition and the colors well enough, I may add it tomorrow.

Sunset, Monday, 13 July 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

True, the sky was a little ‘different’ tonight, but so were some of the thoughts behind painting it – a new development in the series. More about this, I hope, tomorrow – Bastille Day.

Sunset, Sunday, 12 July 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

The best thing about yesterday’s visit to Frederick, after the lunch, was going to the Delaplaine Center for the Arts. What a place! Along with the beautiful Carroll Creek “linear park” and the trompe-l’oeil Community Bridge mural project, the Delaplaine makes you wonder how a town of 60,000 can possibly do so much. 

The Delaplaine was featuring its regional juried exhibit (closing on the 19th) and an exhibition, ‘Urban Landscapes’, by Stephen Hay. We only had time for the large regional exhibit, but I sensed, on the way out, that I had missed something by not going through the Hay show as well, and a visit to his site confirmed that for me.

In the juried show, I was struck by many things, including the works of Robert Stuart Cohen, who does mesmerizing semi-abstractions using repeated brocade-like patterns. His painting ‘The Yellow Box’ made a big impression on me, partly because the title added a third dimension to what might otherwise have been perceived as a (phenomenally complex) two-dimensional design – the ‘yellow box’ became for me like a marble sarcophagus or holy object, an ark.

But all four of us ultimately were glued to the works of Michael Douglas Jones of Damascus, Maryland – and I’m glad I have links I can give you, because they’re difficult to describe. Even when you first see them and think they’re collages of found objects – albeit rare ones from past centuries – they’re remarkable. As you keep looking and realize that Jones has created these objects or made them what they are – they become nothing short of amazing.

For me, the significance of the Delaplaine – this was my second or third visit – is the sense that it gives me of the Frederick art community as open and expansive. It somehow avoids the insularity or cliquishness you find in other places. Further, it’s not elitist, yet it avoids elitism without pandering or compromise. 

Another town of this size, this close to major cities (Frederick is in some ways a satellite of both Washington and Baltimore), could become drained of identity. A town in Virginia with a similar name, last time I checked had long suffered that fate (in relation to Washington). Residents sometimes call that place ‘Dead Fred.’ I can’t imagine people saying the same about the Fred in Maryland.

Sunset, Friday, 10 July 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Today I’ve added new material for each of my three students: Mohan, Lakshmi, and Willa.

Sunset, Wednesday, 8 July 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Out with Flint today (new visitors: Flint’s a pound-found foxhound, runs 10–15 or more miles while I walk about seven, cross-country) – I didn’t realize what a rare summer day it was until I had to come down off the embankment above the Rivanna to encourage him to go in and get a drink.

There’d been a gunshot in the distance somewhere across the way. He’d just gotten in the water, heard the shot, sort of stood there looking in its direction for a moment, then scrambled up the 20 feet or so to where I was standing. (He’s a gun-, thunder- and, probably safe to assume, whip-shy foxhound, which may be why he came to be at the pound.)

I decided that, after running in the heat, he’d better get some water, and, hoping there wouldn’t be any more shots, I found my way down to one of the sand bars on the river. Flint, feeling a little safer with me (as seen previously here), followed – and started walking around in the water, lapping it up as he went.

The view from river level was a revelation – partly because it’s so familiar. I’m so used to everything being kind of hazy at this time of year – the woods up and down the river arching from the banks and bluffs toward the water, the many sand bars and mud flats and the stranded trees stuck in various places by floods, but all of this more or less bonded by a subtle metallic veil of humidity. In typical light, even the river itself fails to separate, the view upstream or down, foreshortened at a low angle, opaque reflection – light bouncing into other light bounced everywhere by atmosphere.

It’s an effect I’ve loved since I was a kid and that I would deliberately exaggerate, blurring my eyes to make everything even more unified.

(“Please don’t throw me in that briar patch!”)

As much as I can revel in the murk, I was stunned by the Rivanna in the clear light of such a blue summer day. The shallow river was crystal clear, showing sand and silt-rock-leaf bottom like a brownish topaz. Every variation on the bottom, every bubble and wrinkle in the current showed itself. Trees all along the banks stood out in infinitely varied green relief and distinct perspective, not the usual moody mass. So vivid and fresh, the clarity of what I was seeing became part of the touch of the air, and the sensation of breathing.

Curiously, the sharp distinctions took nothing away from the ‘oneness’; if anything, they made it almost too much.

Watching the beautiful white dog walk in the water and drink it at the same time didn’t hurt, either.

The coolest moment came about an hour later when we made our second pass by the river – turned out Flint was somewhere in back of me on a ramble, or a chase, but I came to the edge of the embankment just in case I might find him down there. No dog, but through the foliage on the surface of the water the shadow of a large bird moving swiftly up the middle of the river. I looked up, wondering if I’d be able to make out what was casting the shadow. Through the leaves above my head, maybe 30 feet above the river’s surface, I caught a long look at a great blue heron flying through the light.