But a few months after attending a family reunion near Charlottesville, the bucolic city in the heart of my mother’s beloved birth state of Virginia, demonstrations and riots erupted resulting in 3 deaths, many injuries and scores of arrests during a rally by KKK , White Supremacist, and Nazi sympathizers and counter demonstrators.
 
I made these images over a decade ago about a pluralistic society that goes to war with itself after descending into divisive tribalism. I have long held that certain malignant aspects of the Civil War have never evaporated, but instead have percolated and bubbled up from time to time. The recent riots in Charlottesville have born sad testimony to that grim malady of American history.
A view of the Virginia Piedmontese from Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello. Â Returned to my mother’s birthplace outside Charlottesville, Va for a family reunion and visited Monticello for the first time. This chimney is the remains of the joinery workshop on the estate of Monticello. Here master craftsman James Dinsmore fashioned much of the woodworking and furniture at Jefferson’s home along with the principle assistant, enslaved artisan John Hemings, brother to Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman who bore Thomas Jefferson a number of children.
View of The Rotunda from The Lawn of UVa.
Top drawing done with Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens in a Tomoe River Paper sketchbook. Bottom drawing, F-C PAP in an old ledger book.
After a family reunion in Charlottesville, I rode Amtrak to Philadelphia. I think I drew the City Hall tower once before but no idea where that drawing is.
Got in a brief neck-craning sketch of the Philadelphia City Hall tower. The largest city hall in the country btw. And then as I walked through the outside passageway, I took up a position behind a young man playing the violin. Samuel noticed I was sketching him and told me he is learning on his own as he is no longer taking lessons. He also stated he was delightedly surprised to see I in fact got him playing southpaw, which he is. Normally, he has been drawn as a righty. Whaa…? Play on brother.
Pitt Pens in a Stillman & Birn Gamma series sketchbook.
