Last-Minute Mountain (Sunset, Monday, 23 May 2011)

William Van Doren, LAST-MINUTE MOUNTAIN (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

Sunset, Tuesday, 15 December 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Painted at Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Thanks to J. Tillman, who I heard for the first time today, I also heard, for the first time, “My Proud Mountains” by Townes Van Zandt, from a tribute album by mostly newer artists called Introducing Townes Van Zandt Via The Great Unknown. The following may seem a little morbid, especially considering the course TVZ’s life took, but ... anyway ... by way of burial instructions, the song says, lay him down easy –

with only my mountains between me and the sun

Sunset, Sunday, 13 December 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Painted at Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Mist and fog everywhere at sunset, after heavy rains.

I’m a fan of small mountains – perhaps because I like to imagine living within the world they create, a varied but accessible landscape. My favorite small mountain, I’ve finally just learned, in Madison County, Virginia, is named Thorofare. (Not the much higher and larger Thorofare Mountain up on the Blue Ridge and also, as it happens, in Madison.) The sight of it from Route 29 – I think if I lived with that as my view I might not be able to stop painting it. And having said this much, I guess I now owe you at least a sketch, as soon as I can get back there.

The other day on my trip up to Great Falls, I was passing near Thorofare Mountain while the radio was playing something I ordinarily find dull – and I even felt that way when I was 12 and it was #1 – Connie Francis, “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool.” This time it struck me in a new way, and made me think about how the original emotional meaning of a song can become transposed, over the years, from personal romance to something much bigger. I realized, looking at the mountain, what a fool somebody can be for this world.