Don’t Turn Back the Dawn – 2012 Campaign Poster – New Edition

New, improved edition of the poster, available through Imagekind or RedBubble.

Don’t Turn Back the Dawn – 2012 Campaign Poster

Just released today, January 20th, exactly one year before next inauguration day, this poster features my painting of the Washington, D.C., sunrise from Barack Obama’s inauguration. Available in a variety of sizes, framed or unframed. Also carried on RedBubble.

Election Day Result (Sunset, Tuesday, 2 November 2010)

William Van Doren, ELECTION DAY RESULT (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

I’m not sure I’d put any stock in this, but it seems to be dark with a bright lining.

Sunset, Tuesday, 3 November 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Southwest Mountains, from U.S. 29 North, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

This is very much a southern view of the sunset, a perspective not very far to the right of the sunrise painting in the previous post. The west was blocked by a rise of big cedars and pines next to the polling place, and election officers are not allowed to go wandering off in search of a better view.

Sunrise, Tuesday, 3 November 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Southwest Mountains, from U.S. Route 29 North, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

From the precinct polling place, as we were setting up for the day’s voting.

Sunset, Monday, 2 November 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Clear tonight. Tomorrow we get up around 3:45 a.m. to spend a very long day as county election officers – Virginia is electing a governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, in addition to House of Delegates and other races. Tomorrow’s sunset painting – as seen from the polling station – probably won’t be posted here until Wednesday.

Part of the walk with Flint today was spent tracking – this is what happens during deer hunting season – not tracking deer – tracking hunters. You try to tell whether the tire tracks on the jeep trail were made this morning, does it look like they’ve come out as well as gone in, was it a truck, a tractor, an SUV, an ATV ... and so on. When it last rained is probably the most important underlying condition – in our case, just yesterday morning. Today where the tread marks emerged from the puddles the wet mud impressions looked sharply defined and shiny like freshly glazed clay. We met two hunters, brothers, muzzleloaders, in the big field we call the Gobi Desert – an open oval green field dominated by a single great big chinquapin oak.

From there to the river the only marks made this morning were ours. On the lower part of the trail the ground was covered in red oak leaves, rusty brown, like wood – as if a jigsaw puzzle had been taken apart and the pieces scattered everywhere.

We did leave our imprint on the road, just as the hunters did. But although we’re always making a mark on the world, this kind of activity, this art and this writing, is in many respects a place where the world makes its mark on us. The road reverses roles with me and leaves its imprint here.