Our Backyard

Ceramic head in our backyard.

Our first big storm of the season came on Friday.  This is a picture of our backyard and the large ceramic head Linda made in college.  It seems to be  content surrounded by the snow, already awaiting spring.

We got about 14 inches of snow.  The whole eastern seaboard was hit with this storm.  Linda had traveled to Bluefield for the day and got stranded there for one night.  She stayed at a friends house named Herb Lowe.  In fact, our car is still in Bluefield and I plan on getting it on Monday.  She borrowed Herb’s car, he has all wheel drive.  Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Mt. Rogers Hike

Mount Rogers Recreation Area

This past weekend I went on a hike with my Online Appalachian Trail class to Grayson Highlands State Park in the Mount Rogers recreation area in Southwest Virginia.  We had about 15 students come and we hiked 2 miles on Saturday and 5 miles on Sunday.  Saturday some of the students did some tree climbing with ropes with a guest tree climber named Joe.  They seemed to have fun doing that.  It got cold Saturday night and we had a nice campfire.  We stayed at the group campground in the park.  The temperature got down to 24 degrees and we woke to 2-3 inches of snow on the ground.

The park is at an elevation of 4800 feet so we were in the clouds.  Sunday’s hike started off in the fog and was a winter wonderland as seen by the photo.  A couple of times the fog lifted and we had some wondereful scenic views.  We hiked to Rhododendron Gap and when we got there it was foggy but soon it lifted for us and we could see for at least 30 miles.  The hike back was clear and sunny.

The wild ponies even came out to great us as we made it back down the Appalachian Trail.  We had a wonderful time!

Chinese Visitors

Chinese visitors with our president David Olive

We have a group of Chinese visitors on our campus.  There are 4 college students and 1 professor. The students will be here for 1 month and the professor is here for 2 months.  Today they joined our Appalachian Trail class on a hike in Bastian, Virginia on a short section of the Appalachian Trail.  It was a beautiful hike crossing Little Wolf Creek about 6 times and walking under a few tunnels of Rhododendron bushes.  In all we had 27 people on this hike.  We also saw lots of mushrooms and flowers and only got our feet a little wet.

Mount Nittany

Graphite Draawing of Mount Nittany

This is a graphite drawing I did in 1981 of Mount Nittany while I was in graduate school at Pennsylvania State University.   Linda and I lived in married housing and at the end of the parking lot was a large field.  This was the view from there.  In all, I did about 8 graphite drawings, 8 pastel drawings, and 6 oil paintings from this viewpoint.  The paper size is fairly large at 25 x 38 inches and all of them are different.   I remember one day it was raining so I parked my van at the edge of the field, opened the sliding door and drew this majestic mountain.

On a side note, I remember when we first moved in the apartment it was so small I felt like that cartoon where insects lived in a matchbox.  I guess seeing all those roaches running around added to that visualization.

Stealing Psalm 34

This entry is from one of my journal writings in a Creative Writing class I am taking this fall.  Our teacher said to steal so I used the first two words of each of the 22 verses from Psalm 34 to write my own responsive words.  I tried to keep a thankful theme.  It was a fun exercise.

Psalm 34

1 I will go to sleep magnifying the Lord,

2 My soul shall rejoice with joy as I walk in the valley of the dead.

3 O magnify my life as I attempt to walk in the light of your words.

4 I sought guidance from the Lord and he took my hand and walked with me through pain and hardships.

5 They looked upon my face and were amazed at the grace upon me.

6 This poor wretched soul who once was a drug addict.

7 The angel came and sat beside me and stroked my hair.

8 O taste the goodness that God gives, the fruit of his womb.

9 O fear my soul to be delivered at my last calling.

10 The young are not so, they fear nothing, they walk with grace and love.

11 Come and hear my words of wisdom, mother of my soul.

12 What man can deny there is a God?  Look around at his wonderful works.

13 Keep his commandments always in your mind; thou shalt not kill thy sister.

14 Depart from here today with joy in your soul searching for a new way of living.

15 The eyes before you are ever watching as you take one step and then another.

16 The face of God will be revealed unto you as you go your way.

17 The righteous you seek, seek them with humility, washing their feet if needed.

18 The Lord is your friend indeed, come to his fountain of living waters.

19 Many come with sin and they shall be washed from head to toe.

20 He keepeth your cleanliness as in the first day you were born.

21 Evil shall depart from you like a hurricane gone by.

22 The Lord watches over you as the time slips and the waters recede.

The Bass Harbor Lighthouse at Acadia National Park

Student Work

I teach art at Bluefield College and I thought I would share one of my student pieces with you.   Her name is Dana Frech and this picture is of several miniature pots that she made last semester (Spring 2009).  The sizes of these range from about 1/2 inch to a little over 1 inch.  Three of the pieces have been Raku fired (two left and far right) and the other two pieces were fired in a Cone 10 reduction kiln.  Both of these pieces have a floral design painted on them with slips or a

Miniature Pottery by Dana Frech

glaze.  She got this idea from one of the books I had assigned for the Advanced Ceramics class she was taking.   As you can see her work is very detailed and intricately designed.   When you pick up these pieces they are so light that it is almost like picking up a feather.   They are very delicate and quite beautiful to hold in your hand.

World War II

This is another collage watercolor I did this summer.  I found this old envelope addressed to my mother with this beautiful green drawing of Honolulu Hawaii on it.  It also has a miniature black and white photo of “Diamond Head” at the bottom.  One of the neatest things about this envelope is that is postmarked Pearl Harbor October 20, 1941 about 6 weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  It was written by Jo Jones (a man my mother was dating at the time) and the return address says the U.S.S. Utah.   Some of you will remember that the U.S.S.  Utah was sunk during the Japanese attack.    My mother says Jo had told her he was on the ship when it was attacked and they were told to abandon ship and that he jumped into the water and hid in a big pipe.

Now the rest of the watercolor is what I used to draw in church when I was a young kid.  We attended church service each week and  I used to draw on the back of the church bulletin Japanese and American planes and ships in battle.  These drawing are what I remember drawing during the service.   I

Watercolor collage of Pearl Harbor attack.

chose the bright colors for the background since the attack happened early in the morning.

Another Watercolor Portrait

Here is another collage portrait I did this summer of my mother using some of my dad’s stamps. You may notice that one of the canceled stamps is a tree. Also, you will see one of my tree images stamped about a dozen times in blue ink over the entire paper. I had a rubber stamp made from one of my drawings and then used a blue India ink to stamp with.

A watercolor collage of my mother.

Note: On my dad’s portrait you will see the same tree image in black and there is also a stamp with a tree on his piece as well. I hope you have enjoyed seeing these.

Watercolor Portrait

Here is a watercolor portrait I did of my father. He collected stamps and when he passed away he had over $800.00 worth of stamps that had never been used and thousands more canceled stamps. This summer I was doing an inventory of what he had and decided to do a few collage pieces using some of these stamps. I started this piece by randomly dropping some of his collection on a piece of watercolor paper. I then tweaked them a little, glued them on the paper,

A watercolor collage of my father.

and then did a watercolor of his portrait on top. I was quite pleased with the final outcome and I feel like I did him a service by using something he deeply cared about.

Banner Photo

This is the picture I took that I used for the banner photo for my blog. It was taken about 7:00 a.m. on a sandy beach on the Appalachian Trail at the Nahmakanta Lake in the 100 mile wilderness in Maine. The night before we had a strong rain, lightening and thunder storm pass through. I awoke to this scene. It was beautiful. Below is part of the journal I wrote while at this site.

July 28, 2009 Just what I wanted, a sunrise over the lake. WOW! You cannot imagine how beautiful it is here. I am sitting on a log on the beach watching the sun rise over the mountain across the lake. On the opposite end of the shore in the water the suns reflection is so bright it looks like a convex shape rising in the water. It certainly is an optical illusion. In fact there are two reflections in the lake. The lake is very calm with a fine mist rising from it. The mountains also have a smoke like mist on them. I can hear water splashes from a nearby stream, birds are chirping, insects are buzzing about and water is dripping from the leaves. There is the faintest of breezes blowing. This is a place you could spend the rest of your days. At exactly 7:00 a.m. I took a 5 minute swim in the misty calm water. I just couldn’t resist. The water was a little cold but not too cold to enjoy the wet stillness. The sun is shining now and beating down. Rippling, chapping, hawk, tweet, rush, buzz, chirping, these are the sounds of the lake.