Central Armature Works – Sunset, Thursday, 8 September 2016

William Van Doren, CENTRAL ARMATURE WORKS. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on Arches 140# watercolor paper, 17 x 23.

The painting took off from a layer of dark purple clouds over the setting sun. The title popped up because it’s the name of a business in D.C. where my dad worked as a salesman in the mid-1950s. I was amazed to find it still exists. They refurbished and sold electric motors and parts; now they’re “power apparatus specialists.”