Rainscape – Sunset, Tuesday, 29 May 2012

William Van Doren, RAINSCAPE. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

The Blue Ray – Sunset, Monday, 28 May 2012

William Van Doren, THE BLUE RAY. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

It’s a blue shadow, but since a shadow indicates light I’m sticking with my original impression, a blue ray.

Memorial Oak

What killed the oak tree?

It was not clear why the great oak in front of the group of nine around the yard should have died when it did. The other oaks knew but wouldn’t tell me. It could have been its proximity to the electric line and the years of harassment by the power company. However, what I finally noticed was that its shape, the way it bent forward and its major branches extended in arches — these were as if it had been born elegiac. It was from the beginning an oak of remembering. As it lived, it reviewed and remembered. It was forever an oak of the past. It was never sorry, it was always ready, it was never just living.

Aero Dynamic – Sunset, Sunday, 27 May 2012

William Van Doren, AERO DYNAMIC. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

I Dream of Hancock, Maryland

I dreamed I was in Hancock, Maryland, which is a pretty little town and a plain little town, a charming place and a possibly depressing place, it’s difficult for me to say which way it might fall. It follows the C & O Canal and Potomac River on one side and on the other the Interstate seals it in. It’s a long narrow succession of one thing after another, the alternating sights contribute to a binary, sometimes bi-polar impression. I dreamed the main street and its sidewalks were white — by which I mean, whiteness, the quality of being completely blank. Like a metaphysical blank canvas not yet filled in with any sort of reality. That’s the street where we live.

Field of Dreams – Sunset, Saturday, 26 May 2012

William Van Doren, FIELD OF DREAMS. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.