Art League Speaker

As I mentioned in the blog earlier in the month, I was the featured speaker for July. My topic was intaglio printing. I took many of my etchings with plates in clear bags to pass around. I spoke on Rembrandt and Whistler primarily, with examples from their work and why they are my favorite artists in the medium of intaglio etching.
Melanie, Pearce and my mom were able to attend. Most of the folks seemed to enjoy the presentation.
Melanie said I was difficult to photograph as I moved around too much...

Field of Glory

Always love to travel through Trenton every now and then...the scene of my 7th grade moment in glory...catching the touchdown pass...the hero of the 7th grade.
One thing nice about the football field, while the memory may fade, the distance doesn't.
It was then just as long a pass as it actually was...unlike when I returned to Monticello and the scene of my 4th grade class run down to the fence and back to determine the fastest. What then seemed so long was but a short run from the wall to the fence, no yard markers to determine the exact distance.

After the rain

After the late afternoon hard rain the skies cleared enough for a nice sunset. We were worn out from a day of keeping kids, cleaning up appliances. We were lazy and had Jordon get McDonald's for supper, picking up Melanies Claritin D. Funny, like druggies, she and Jordon use it so much we have to rotate getting it. Pitiful.
A reminder that I have six all new works down at the Gateway Gallery. They are older prints I did in the darkroom of the Mt Tabor Methodist church that burned several years ago. They are framed in black and white 16x20 shadow box frames and are for sale at $130.
I have been showing such a variety, I decided to narrow the focus and do a series. I will be curious to observe if any comments are made. Feedback is a rare thing these days. We could be sorry artists or grand artists, but we would never know it, for seldom do the artists comment on any work.

Before the Snort

Now both were well aware of my presence about fifty yards in front of them, intruding upon their velvet removal from their antlers. Soon they snorted and took off for the marsh.

Velvet Bucks

The two male deer were in the shade working off their velvet when I walked up. The one had a wreath of moss that saw me first. The other was more concerned with his velvet removal. Eventually they snorted and took off. It was a good spotting as I usually see the doe but seldom these two.

July Full Moon

I did not publish this back when the moon was full, but here is the Buck Moon of July. Called the Buck moon for this is the time of month the male deer start losing the velvet on their horns.
And sure enough, this past week I saw two large buck doing just that.

JT

I posted on Facebook today about JT recovering from being shot in the rear with a pellet gun. He is doing well. We keep him as much as possible in the back yard when he goes out. If he gets out the front door without our knowledge, he will return to the scene of his shooting. There is a female dog there no doubt he is interested in.

To Fanning Springs

Monday around noon we made the decision to travel down to Fanning Springs and get the refrigerator, stove and dishwasher we had purchased from Stacy and Susan, whose house was being foreclosed upon next week. At first Melanie was not going to ride with Jordon and I but decided to take the day off and ride with us. We took my sisters SUV and trailer and about the time we got to Ft White, realized I had forgot the dolly. We called Stacy, who did not have one, so we made the nearly twenty mile trip back to get it! It was debated should be go today, but trudged on. When we finally found their place, they were not expecting us. The refrigerator was full, the dishwasher was in use and the stove was a mess.  We finally got our stuff loaded, plus a mamma cat and her kitten I had not counted on. Hot and worn out, we unloaded all on the back porch to clean it up, make sure no mice were present. I told Melanie, I do think they got the best deal out of this.
Lesson learned. NEVER buy sight unseen, especially from Kinfolk.

Alligator loop ride

Today, to give Melanie some peace of mind, I took Pearce and Jonathan to the Alligator Lake park in the heat of the day to ride the three mile dike loop. It was slow going as we had to make many stops and adustments. I told them to carry little, but they insisted on bringing too many bottles, and sure enough, asked me to carry them. Of which I refused, saying, let it be a good lesson in economy of carry.
We made the loop finally and they spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool cooling off.

Cracker Part 4

Experience taught the Cracker to resent intrusion and be suspicious of unfamiliar things and persons, particularly strangers who do not speak his idiom. Anyone approaching with a 'How do you do? is likely to be answered by an eloquent and disdainful expectoration. Generations of contact with hardship and poverty have made him undemonstrative, and he seldom displays any but the strongest emotions. He has appropriated the defensive guile of the Negro and turned it to good account in his dealings. Consequently he drives a hard bargain with soft words. The Yankee is his special prey and to best a Yankee by any device is legitimate. 'In the winter', the cracker boasts, 'we live on the Yankee, and in the summer on fish.' Yet with all his bargaining craft, he is often cheated.
from the 1939 Florida, American Guide Series

Chevy Syrup

From Henry C Vause, to Luther Ray, to John Clare, to Landon Randolph, to Nathaniel Manoa...the old hubcap syrup strainer.

Mr Vause taught my father much about cooking syrup. 1884-1994 his daughter Ethel "Red" Vause, never married, lived behind the 20 acres in Crawfordville. Her parents lived in an old wood house similiar to my father near the Methodist Church, which was beside the property.
Red would come over every Thanksgiving and help cook the syrup with us. When my father was the circuit preacher of Crawfordville and Sopchoppy, Red was part of the youth group.

An Unrehearsed Tragedy

by john clare stokes

The going out is never well-rehearsed
Given the script we practice the parts
We feign the inflection trying from the heart
Stage fright stealing the forgotten verse.

There is no room for grieving here---
It might bring down the anger of the gods.

From the wings the lines are mouthed:

My own flesh and blood, dear sister, dear Ismene,
how many griefs our father Oedipus handed down!

Poor actors in the act of life to end
Huddled for the curtain's call
The gurney men await in the empty hall
From the pit the dirge begins.

Now as we keep our watch and
wait final day, count no moon
happy til he dies, free of pain at last.

The stage lights dim as angels descend
Dumb-founded the unrehearsed clamor
in silence not even a stammer
he rises on cue from the bed
the play ends.

Live Oedipus, as if there's no tomorrow!

The gurney men enter and scurry about
Coin the glazed eyes
Close the wordless mouth
Pull the final curtain sheet
One by one the unrehearsed
file out.

There is no room for grieving here--
it might bring down the anger of the gods.

Ploughing on Sunday

by Wallace Stevens

The white cock's tail
Tosses in the wind.
The turkey-cock's tail
Glitters in the sun.

Water in the fields.
The wind pours down.
The feathers flare
And bluster in the wind.

Remus, blow your horn!
I'm ploughing on Sunday,
Ploughing North America.
Blow your horn!

Tum-ti-tum,
Ti-tum-tum-tum!
The turkey-cock's tail
Spreads in the sun.

The white cock's tail
Streams to the moon,
Water in the fields.
The wind pours down.

The Insanity of Artistry

After writing the "Flushed" blog, it was soon time to go down to the gallery for my day of volunteering, part of the contract with showing. I had reserved a section and when I arrived, another artist was in the spot I had asked for. My work was against the wall in the back room. I bristled, took my work and put it in the car. If it wasn't for the board members there having a meeting, talking me into keeping my work and placing it across the hall in the same room, I would have packed it in.
As it was, I cooled down for this silly show on my part and placed eight works on the wall.
Volunteered with the excellent water color artist and was drawn again toward painting, be it oil or watercolor.
My next thought now since my pastoral, country, historic scenes do not seem to resonate, to go with perhaps some of the street photography, or all monochrome. Shock value if you will.
Even the water colorist told me the pieces she likes, no one else seems to either.

Flushed

It could be from the continual overcast and rain the past week, but probably that just tends to highlight the underlying cause. It is an effort of diminishing returns. After so much of this diminish, one begins to take inventory and see what is of value.
This blog is one example. After nearly three years and over a thousand posts bearing my soul in many, I still only have less than ten followers. The other is facebook. After garnering over eight-hundred friends, I still get less comments and likes than when I first began this venture.
The other is the gallery. After four months hanging work, I have sold one piece. That covers the cost of the rent.
I recently was looking at the top ten all time highest selling photographs. The top went for 2.6 million.
I also was looking at another photograph on Facebook with the story of an old house. 880 thousand likes.
It is a continual effort to discern what resonates. What resonates with me, old history, nostalgia, nature, surreal, mystery does not seem to have much of a following. There are a few of the old
timers, but mostly, including the poetry, is ignored.
Artists need feedback I keep saying, and I am just not getting it, at least in the realms I am circulating it. The question is, do I pull back all together and just keep it private, or do I change direction totally?
I am at a cross road. At times I think of moving from photography and back to painting and printmaking.
When the next three months rent at the gallery are over if I have not sold anything, I will not renew. Volunteering there is a pain anyhow as the Art Gallery board has set up too many rules and procedures for the normal volunteer. I think with all these heavy handed rules, the gallery will probably be short term.
I am musing, but like I have said in the past, since this blog has less than ten followers, it is primarily a vent, an outhouse if you will, to dump my pablum upon my little world.

Part 5 Of Strawberries, Bread Pudding and Sopchoppy

The last two years in Williston were times of joy and sorrow for our family. Spreading through the town was this new Charismatic craze and my father in his ministry was affected as well. A tent revival took place in Williston at the top to the hill with the evangelist Jimmy Strickland. It affected many families in the area, some for the worse sadly.
When my father started saying it is OK to raise your hands in praise, you would have thought he had gone into a full-blown tongues speaking diatribe. The chairman of the board, a local judge, would have none of this new found zeal. Thus, the cord or strife was struck and it was only a matter of time before it was time to move on. The beauty and the beast of the Methodist appointment system is the congregation if enough are dissatisfied can have a pastor removed. If those protesting are prominent enough, you do no even need a majority.
But by the time in June of 1977 it was learned we would be transferred to Lake City, my ties with Williston had already been severed.
Following two years from my high school graduation in 1973 to two years spent at Santa Fe Community College receiving my AA degree, my time in Williston was coming to an end.
Those final years for me were some of the best though, for in 1975, at the age of twenty, Dr ZT Johnson arrived for a revival. I was deep in a relationship with an older girl and my conviction of sin was great. As a pastor son I always thought I had immunity or an inside route to heaven. That clearly came crashing upon me while listening to Dr Johnson from the back of the church in the Sunday school room section. As Mrs Catherine Wilson one evening was singing Healing Love, I could no longer restrain my burden and as was the custom, mustered the courage to walk down the aisle and repent of my sin. My father I recall saying over me, It gives a father no greater pleasure than to see his own son come to the Lord.
Following the service I did the most difficult thing I ever had to do at the time and broke off the relationship with the older girl.
It was then that Dr Johnson, then the President of Asbury College offered me a way of escape, or a distance from the source of temptation. He said that I could come and live with him in his house at Asbury in Wilmore, Kentucky and attend Asbury.
It was an exciting prospect to return to Wilmore, the town we had lived in before arriving in Williston.
I had fond memories of Wilmore and looked forward greatly to my Junior year. After resigning from my loved job at Williston Memorial Hospital as a maintenance worker under Warner Morgan, I packed the yellow VW station wagon with 8 track and headed for Atlanta to spend the first night of the journey with my Uncle Curtis and Aunt Grace Stokes.
The next day afternoon I arrived in Wilmore to Dr Johnson's two story home on North Lexington Avenue. I was given the upstairs bedroom facing the campus. Across the hall was Keith Kempton, also staying with Dr Johnson. Behind Dr Johnson's was our old duplex apartment on Bethel Street where we had lived when my father was the Alumni Director and Director of Student Affairs in my 4th and 5th grade years. It was like returning home.
While I did not connect with my old twin brother friends Stuart and Steven Smith, also in the Junior Class, I did connect with many new found friends. It was somewhat more difficult to feel a part of campus happenings, not living in a dorm, but the time with Dr Johnson, having lost his wife earlier that same year, was invaluable.
I continued the study in Art and had two of the best professor's, Rudy Medlock and Edward Knippers.
My friends Keith, John Liddle, Richard Parker, Amy, Cathy and others had many grand days hiking Jessamine Creek, the fields around the college, Cumberland Gap and more.
It was a Spanish class that kept me from graduating from Asbury. Having never taken a foreign language, the class was too advanced and I received an F. I just did not see how I could recover from an F, having to take the class over.  It was in this determination of what to do that Dr Johnson said sadly Keith and I would not be able to stay with him the following year as his grand daughter Cindy and a friend were going to stay with him. I then determined to return to Williston and resume my job as a maintenance worker at Williston Memorial.
It was a long, sad ride home, driving straight through with three other students I was taking as far as Ocala, the yellow VW stuffed to the roof with luggage. I fortunately was able to return to the hospital where I took up mowing and painting, spending time with George Amica, Jeanette Faulk, my future father-in-law Gerald Hethcoat and Dick in the Lab.
It was my father who offered the answer this time, saying I could attend Florida Southern in Lakeland and receive a discount as a United Methodist minister's son. I applied to the summer term to re-take Spanish and set off again in the yellow VW for Lakeland. That summer while taking Spanish I stayed in a dorm and worked on the yard crew, mowing and pulling weeds around the Frank Lloyd Wright architecture campus. This time, the Spanish teacher, Dr Cologne was patient and at a pace I could comprehend well enough to muster a C. I was on my way to repeating my Junior and Senior years at Florida Southern.
Next....the Florida Southern Years....

Richard Martin Orander

I have no evidence, but could this be my grandfather returning to the scene of his mining accident for a photograph? He seems to be favoring the right leg, and in the background it looks like the narrow entrance of a coal mine shaft. The suit of clothing and the background just seem out of place. But in the early 1900's, the dress code was vastly different from today's standard.

Richard Orander

A most kindly man, I have faded memory, as he died when I was six on March 30, 1961. He was born November 12, 1887. He married my grandmother Carrie Ethel Dodson on  Dec 26, 1909. She was born March 14, 1893 and died April 19, 1969.

Dick Orander Comes

 

My grandfather Richard Martin "Dick" Orander with his buses. In the bottom photograph to the left was my Uncle Kermit, Richard's oldest son of two, the younger being Don. My mother Clara Jean was the only daughter, the apple of Richard's eye.

Dick Orander and the four mule team

My grandfather Richard Martin Orander of Bluefield, West Virginia in his early years in Virginia with his four mule team wagon. I assume the man to the right is one of his brothers.
My grandfather worked in the coal mines early on, but was injured. This led to his life work as an independent bus driver, owning his own small bus line from Crumpler to Northfork and Bluefield.

Cracker Part 3

Teas and brews from native plants and herbs supply remedies for most of the cracker's ills, although few households are complete without a drugstore malaria medicine, usually a volatile draught of cathartic and quinine to cure 'break-bone' fever. Panther-oil, when it can be obtained, is prized for easing stiff joints and rheumatism.
Superstition rules the life of the cracker; hunting or fishing or planting--almost everything he undertakes--is done according to accepted formula. He would no more set fence posts in the light of the moon than he would plant potatoes or other crops that mature underground.
Any windfall, or a considerable profit from crops, goes for an automobile, preferably a Ford, since the old Model T proved to be the most trustworthy on woods trails. His economic status therefore is known by his transportation, which falls into four categories: mule, Model T, Model A, and V-8; but the garage is the same, an open shed or lean-to.

Cooper Hawk

Today the Officer from the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service came by. He said Landon's license was several years old and he asked if he was still doing falconry. I had to tell him that he no longer had a hawk, that he was in the Air Force. It was a sad time knowing Landon is not communicating with us and the hawk pen is empty.

Cracker part 2

The cracker's wants are simple...his garden plot, pigpen, chicken coop, and the surrounding woods and near-by streams supply him and his family with nearly all the living necessities. Fish is an important item of diet, and when the cracker is satiated with it he has been heard to say: 'I done et so free o' fish, my stommick rises and falls with the tide.'
Any small income from his place is spent at the general store, and Saturday is the day to go to town and stock up with 'bought vittles'. His one luxury is tobacco. Snuff-dipping is still prevalent among the older womenfolk, though they scorn cigarettes as immoral.
from the 1939 Florida, American Guide Series.

Before Sixty-One

There is an old sharpening wheel I have from my father's place. I think I tried to count the rings recently in the large,heavy sandstone wheel and it was over seventy. At the rate it wears down with the sharpening of hoes and farm implements, it should last well into the next century, long after its metal stand has rusted away and we too, are long gone.
This very stone could very well have sharpened swords from the late,great war of Northern Aggression. We can only imagine at this point.

Gone the Fronds

I enjoy musing upon old Dixie and the South. Much of my reading material stems from this era and I am drawn to the old ways, always in search of some remnant from old Dixie. This is a fictional account of a soldier returning to Florida after a long journey home from the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia in April of 1865.

"It  was Palm Sunday and our long journey home was not lined with palms and shouts of joy, but littered with the charred stubble of cotton fields, the rubble of a lost cause strewn before us, not the Kingdom of Jubilee we had fought for, the old home place on her last breath of an iron-lunged re-construction. Not even old Gabriel the family mule to lift the joist to level the sunken porch, taken to bear the strain for the rogues now in control. In the overgrown grass out back, I bent and picked some of the wild hurricane lilies growing under the pecan canopy. I found one of the few unbroken jars and made an arrangement. It stood in stark contrast. But I knew the rubble called the South would some day, like these white lilies, rise despite the hurricane that came upon us, and bring again a beauty to the land of Dixie.

Water and the Word

Between the water and the word
There stood a mile of wood
Brother Eubanks would wax long
Long after our thoughts had turned
to water

This photograph is from the last visit Melanie and I made up to Hopewell
to visit with the Shining Congregation. We took Rocky along our old Golden Retriever to swim in the Suwannee at Cone Bridge. He enjoyed that.
We took the oil lanterns with us in hopes of capturing the inside of the church in a golden glow.
I could never get enough glow from them, so in the end resorted to an orange diffuser over the flash.
I told Melanie, if everytime we got it right, we would have no excuse to return.
So before long, perhaps in the fall when things cool and the myriads of biting varments are dormant, we will return and give it another shot.