Sunset, Sunday, 28 June 2009

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

Twilight, Saturday, 27 June 2009

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

This was only 15 or so minutes after the sunset.

Change happens.

I decided ‘twilight’ was a better description than ‘15 or so minutes after sunset’. Then, as I was painting, the iChing (iPod on shuffle) threw out Antony & The Johnsons, “Twilight.”

I have yet to hear anything by Antony that I haven’t liked. I would say he’s the marriage (?) of Boy George and Roy Orbison, except that fails to do justice, if not to his talent, to something that he expresses. I first encountered him through his soul-shaking performance of “If It Be Your Will” on Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Several of the performances on that soundtrack, while perfectly fine in the context of the film, grow precious on further listening – but not that one. Rufus Wainwright is another notable exception.

Shooting this linen canvas – the photo setup involved – gave me a chance to add a sunset that I really like, involving the Lincoln Memorial, from January 5th.

I’ve also added a new entry – “Looking at the Sunset (Part 5)” – a sketch that I originally thought was bad. In fact, I only ran across it again because I’d sketched this crazy twilight on the back of the same sheet! 

My reversal of opinion about my own sketch – I actually like it a great deal – illustrates something I told my students (Willa, Mohan, and Lakshmi) about a dozen times each, when they’d be discouraged or dismayed by something they’d tried to do – and it’s something that I told them (every time) I have trouble learning myself. Especially in visual art, the quality of what you do can’t be judged by your own immediate emotional reaction. Save your work – save your sketches! If nothing else, days, weeks or years later when you encounter them again, they’ll bring back some part of your life to you.

You may also be surprised how much more promising they seem than they did on the day you were caught up in judging yourself.

Sunset, Saturday, 27 June 2009

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

I don’t need this picture to be worth a thousand words, maybe just 200 or so, since I don’t have many word-words tonight, just these color-words.

I waited past ‘sunset’ to get this sky, and then, as sometimes happens, the sky went completely berserk with color. I sketched that one and may give it a shot tomorrow.

Speaking of second versions, I had actually done, in quick succession, two versions of the solstice sunset from June 21st. I’ve parked the alternate June 21st sunset at the end of the June calendar in the archive.

Sunset, Wednesday, 24 June 2009

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

Out with Flint, it was a normal day. 

Oak leaves, green and glossy, stuck out everywhere into the trail, above last year’s layers of brown fallen leaves, some still whole, some broken down into recognizable pieces, then the litter, then blackish-brown dust, then oak dust turned to clouds. Many’s the highly decorated sunset I’ve seen with oak leaf cloud cluster. 

As usual, the ground and air refused to be entirely separated from each other.

As we crossed the section we call Middle Earth (so named because for years our trails encircled the large area of woods but Laura and I never actually went through), it was evident that trees supported the sky, or to put it another way, without the trees the sky would fall. 

In clumps of large ferns I saw fossils of the present forming by the instant. Soft deep cushions of moss grew faster than my understanding of moss.

I took the trees’ lower limbs, some with sharp broken ends and ready to fall, as a palpable warning not to make living woods into poetry or anything undead.

*    *    *    *

When we came out into the open the “Mexican guys” the landlord uses to cut the fields had just finished the last section and were taking a break at the edge of the woods. Flint ran up to them like he usually does with anyone in these situations and starting circling the tractors and barking like a maniac. I assured the guys he would follow me after a minute or two; they were both at one of the tractors, one sitting in the seat, the other standing as if on a sort of running board on the other side near the front.

“That’s O.K.! It’s O.K.!” they said.

I kept walking and, thankfully, Flint did stop and followed me in short order. I waved and without looking back yelled out “Buenas tardes!” in my best casual, I’m-really-not-trying-too-hard effort at Spanish.

That’s when they shot me four times in the back with their pistolas.

In my anxiety to avoid stereotypes I had failed to notice the fully stocked bandoleers across the guys’ chests. Not to mention the sombreros, big mustaches, and menacing smiles with gold teeth.

My dying thought, if only I can get Townes Van Zandt to commemorate this ... could he be bothered to split the difference between Pancho and Lefty?

Sunset, Tuesday, 23 June 2009

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

For Emily, with love.

Emily’s a former backhoe operator and homecoming queen, a longtime blackjack dealer at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas, a wild horse woman (woman who rides wild horses, in addition to the other meaning), and an ace stained glass artist, as well as someone who cares for other people, both for a living and in her life. My sister. She shares her birthday with our mom, Helen Bezilla Van Doren (1923–1986).

Emily drove across the country, from Norfolk to L.A., on a motorcycle when she was 20. Actually, when she got to the Grand Canyon her boyfriend, Cruz Treviño, met her and they rode the rest of the way together. Cruz is responsible for inspiring me to start writing music; I think if he and Emily had stayed together my dad might have lived another five years just so he could keep arguing with Cruz.

The only counsel my dad offered Emily for her trip was to give her his buck knife in a leather sheath.

Emily thinks Mom was a little envious. Her advice: “Go west, young man!”

*    *    *    *

I’m very happy to note that as of today we have an index to earlier entries (there’s a link also on the right side of the page). 

Sunset, Monday, 22 June 2009

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