Southern Exposure (Sunset, Thursday, 7 April 2011)

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

Clouds were engulfing the sky everywhere else, so I turned my perspective toward the south. This view is past our neighbor, the NGIC (National Ground Intelligence Center), except, oddly enough, I left them out of the painting.

Sunset, Friday, 26 February 2010

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

As suggested by the post from earlier today, our nearest neighbor, on one side, is the U.S. Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center. They came here about five years after I did. I wrote the poem after a long walk in the woods, where I could survey the entire length of NGIC headquarters.

Recon (NGIC)

The gingerbread house of my childhood becomes the federal building
The National Ground Intelligence Center perched on 30 acres next door
Four stories of brick and glass and aqua facade you can see
And a lot more you can’t
Brick by brick delicious
Everything icing or cake
All that national ground intelligence
Baked.