The Blue Ray – Sunset, Monday, 28 May 2012

William Van Doren, THE BLUE RAY. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

It’s a blue shadow, but since a shadow indicates light I’m sticking with my original impression, a blue ray.

Memorial Oak

What killed the oak tree?

It was not clear why the great oak in front of the group of nine around the yard should have died when it did. The other oaks knew but wouldn’t tell me. It could have been its proximity to the electric line and the years of harassment by the power company. However, what I finally noticed was that its shape, the way it bent forward and its major branches extended in arches — these were as if it had been born elegiac. It was from the beginning an oak of remembering. As it lived, it reviewed and remembered. It was forever an oak of the past. It was never sorry, it was always ready, it was never just living.

Up the Down Staircase (Sunset, Monday, 30 May 2011)

William Van Doren, UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

Sunset, Monday, 31 May 2010

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

Sunset, Monday, 25 May 2009

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