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William Van Doren, IF TONY RULED THE WORLD. Sunset from Hollymead, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.
This was a “driveway moment,” except the driveway I stopped in wasn't mine! I was driving up U.S. 29 to get home for the sunset, but about four miles from my destination I could see in my driver’s side mirror that something amazing was already happening. I turned up to the top of a ridge between a condo complex and a shopping center, where there’s a dead end lane into some space cleared for future construction. While I sketched, people in five other cars came up and pulled over just to see the sunset. It was kind of wonderful. From a car radio I heard the great Tony Bennett (who could just as well paint this himself) singing “If I Ruled the World” ... “Every head would be held up high/ There'd be sunshine in everyone's sky/ If the day ever dawned when I ruled the world.”