Sunday, August 22, 2010

Back from Appalachia wine tour



This is Barboursville, or at least part of it. It's a tiny town north of Charlottesville, Virginia. It's also the home of Barboursville Winery, one of the many wineries I visited in my 10-day tour of Virginia and Tennessee. I have just returned home from this wine-soaked vacation, and the drawing you see above is the latest and last of all the drawings and sketches I did on this voyage. This scene is to me the perfect rendition of nostalgic Americana: a sleepy town street with porches and a few commercial buildings, with a train track running through it. A few times every day the noise and clatter of a train passing through shakes the town, and then as it recedes the town returns to its quiet rest. Note the Masonic flag flying beneath the American flag; the Freemasons have a lodge there and own some of the buildings on that side of the street.

This little section of Barboursville is also home to a couple of sophisticated art galleries, and "Muscle Car Paradise," a private collection of perfectly preserved sports cars from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. This is the work of one wildly rich collector, but it is occasionally opened to the public so that the cars can be admired. A couple of these vehicles in less perfect condition were parked in front of the museum buildings. See what hidden treasures I can find while touring through the hilly land of Virginia! Over the next days I'll show you more of my drawings done on-site in various locations. This is done in brown ink marker and colored pencil, about 10" x 8".

1 comment:

Tristan Alexander said...

So, nestalgic..it reminds me of small towns when I was a kid.