Back from Orange

Orange, Virginia is a bit north of Charlottesville, in the west center of the roughly triangular state. It's an old industrial town with farmland and pasture all around it. I'm back from my annual August vacation there. I wish I could have spent more time there. I'm not a good vacationer. I feel like I have to DO STUFF while I'm there, like draw or read or photograph or sightsee, and so when I come back I'm just as tired as when I left. So I need a vacation from my vacation! It's hard to drop the ways of my frantic, anxious urban environment. But I did bring back plenty of art and did manage to eat good food and drink a variety of wines. 

I did this drawing while sitting in a deserted town street in the evening. While I was drawing I was also waiting for a train to pass by on the nearby tracks. The Norfolk Southern railway goes right through the center of Orange, though it doesn't stop there. After my drawing was done I was rewarded with a Norfolk Southern freight train passing through with noise and magnificence. A few minutes later, another N.S. freight train came through in the other direction. I love trains and would like to be an artistic railfan. But unlike buildings, they don't stay in one place so I would have to draw my trains from photographs. 

Orange isn't a rich town, though there are plenty of rich people with estates all around it. It's not horsey like Middleburg. But I think there is plenty of potential to turn it into a more touristic attraction, as that part of Virginia shifts from agriculture to wineries and tourism. So far the potential hasn't been activated, but a luxury market for inns and wineries and events and gourmet local food does exist.

I drew this empty storefront with a Pitt fine point black tech pen on a yellow Moleskine page, 4 1/2" x 5", August 9, 2013.