Blue Ridge Parkway School Ghost Story and They Look so Different!

Tea Time  Original 12"x16" Oil Painting    $384

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at  KENDALL KESSLER ART

Apple          Original Colored Pencil Drawing  NFS

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

TWO OF MY FAVORITE STILL LIFES!

Haunted School near Asheville, North Carolina

In the 1970's The Clyde Irwin High School was built just outside Asheville, North Carolina. What was left of the Old County Home Graveyard was dug up to make room for the school.  The remains from the Potter's Field were moved across the street and buried under wooden crosses.  

The spirits must not have liked the move as there are strange goings on since the transfer. Janitors that work the night shift at the school refuse to relate the strange incidents they witness!

Unmarked graves are said to still be beneath the Potters Field overlooking the School.

I found this ghost story on Local Ghost Stories of Asheville, North Carolina website! Great website!

Life with The Word and Bird Man - Clyde Kessler

We continue to battle the big black ants and the small ones.  I guess they don't like each other because the big black ones stay on the slips of paper in one part of the the counter and the small ones are in another section.  I guess they are worried about fist fights.

Anyway, when we first put out the slips of paper with the poison they  all sat around in a perfect circle, laughing and shooting the breeze.   Now there aren't any perfect circles - just partial arcs and I have seen some ants look like they are about to fall of the paper on the ledges.  

Could it be they are drunk with all that glucose and can't find their way back to the nest?

Still, I don't see them waltzing through the shelves and getting into the food supply so I can't really complain that much, but I like writing about them!

Blue Ridge Parkway Ghost Story and I don't need to feed the Ants today!

My Artwork

Lodge at The Peaks of Otter    Original 16"x12" Oil Painting  $384

Prints on Paper or Canvas Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

Fairlawn Ridge Original Oil Painting has been Sold

Prints on Paper or Canvas Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

Dock at Pandapas  Original 30"x40" Oil Painting      $2425

Prints on Paper or Canvas Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

Here is another great Blue Ridge Parkway Ghost Story!

The Battery Park Hotel is now apartment building.  Supposedly it is haunted by a woman that was murdered in room 224.  On July 17th, 1936 Helen Clevenger was found murdered.  She had been beaten, her faced slashed and shot.

An employee Martin Moore confessed to the crime and died in the gas chamber.  On stormy nights Helen is seen wandering the halls.

The roof was the scene for a number of suicides and people report seeing bodies falling from it.

I found this great story on The Local Asheville Ghost Stories website!

Life with The Word and Bird Man - Clyde Kessler

Yesterday I wrote how our kitchen is a 24/7 diner for ants this time of the years.  We have a glucose poison they are supposed to eat and take back to the nest.  This is not happening. They just sit around the poison in a circle and have fun rather than take it back to the nest and annihilate it.

We have two kinds of ants.  Some very small ones and larger, blacker ones.

Today I was so happy that the large ones were not sitting around the poison talking and laughing!  I guess one of them finally went back to the nest.  There is still plenty of poison on the slips of paper so I don't have to serve them today.

The smaller ones are still here but they still have plenty of poison to sit around.

The waitress has a day off!

Roanoke, The Star City near The Blue Ridge Parkway and They wouldn't tell us...

My Artwork

Star City    original oil painting  25"x40"  $2000.00

Prints on paper or canvas available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

I am especially pleased with the complicated system of color, the intense brushwork, and the overall mood of this painting.

The Star City

Another great Blue Ridge Mountain locale is Roanoke city which is near The Blue Ridge Parkway.  It is also known as The Star City.

It was originally called Big Lick and was established in 1852 and chartered in 1874.  It was called Big Lick due to the salt which drew wildlife to the site near the Roanoke River.  

The name Roanoke is said to have originated from an Algonquian work for shell money.  This was also the name of the river that bisected it and the county.  The river is probably where the shells came from.

I got this information from Wikopedia and my husband, Clyde Kessler.

Blue Ridge Meadow Sunset   Original pastel painting has been sold

Prints on paper or canvas available at      KENDALL KESSLER ART

Life with The Word and Bird Man - Clyde Kessler

Again, before I print this comment my husband made about people I want to emphasize that he is well-liked by all that come into contact with him and is the most diplomatic person I have ever known.  

He is quite a contradiction - a very sweet curmudgeon!

Sometimes I am in awe of all we can do.  Computers, airplanes, spacecraft,etc.  My husband is not as impressed with our accomplishments because of all the problems technology has created for this limited spaceship.

The other day I said to him that ants don't have computers.  His response was, if they did, they wouldn't tell us.

Then I said we can fly but we don't have wings.  He said there are so many people filled with hot air that they could probably get anywhere they wanted to go without an airplane.

Life with a curmudgeon!  Lots of fun!

Something Completely Different and They are on Parade...

I am pleased to introduce my non-objective work.  Most people call this type of art abstract.  I don't care what people call it, I just hope they will have a great visual experience  when viewing them.  Most of my life I have been painting representational oil paintings so these paintings are something completely different for me and I am pleased with them.  They are in a new gallery on my website called The Center of my Mind.  These paintings are my unique expressions of color and texture that I put into all my artwork. But these don't have any recognizable objects so the viewer either likes them for how they appear as artwork, or they don't like them. Their decision is based on the visual arrangement rather than on what they like to see.  We all have visual biases.  Artists call this kind of artwork music without words.

I will be adding two more soon.

The ants are on parade again.  No matter what I do they stream in and go about their business.  I have ant traps out.  I make sure all crumbs are up and food is put in a plastic bag and taken outside.  I have tried natural remedies.   The only thing I have not been able to do is convince my guys to not put anything in the trash that was with-in a yard of food.  I've done everything, Mom, but they are still here!  I have decided to give up.  I just wave at them and I think some of them wave back.  I don't even check to see if they have their green card. We are one with the ants.

Impasto Variations and More Ant Fun

I have been painting for more years than I care to admit to and it is always a new experience.  It is amazing how paintings like to push the artist around instead of the artist controlling the work.  As I have said before, it is a balancing act between control and accident.  I can't imagine using any kind of formula.  I know some artists do and all I can say is "to each their own" but it is not for me.  I sort of know what I am doing, but I always allow for things to happen that I didn't plan which makes for a perpetually exciting experience.  Right now I am modifying the impasto method I have been using for years so that the elevation of the painting is barely there.  At one time I was practically putting it on with a spoon but I am now using  a subtle impasto effect and incorporating many different warm and cool colors with each brushstroke.  Keeps me going!  Dancers have a saying that they must dance or die well I must paint or die.  I hope I have a paint brush in my hand when I go.  If I have mentioned that before it is because it is the truth.

On the home front the ants are back in the kitchen.  We are still seeing a few in the bathrooms but now there are quite a lot in the kitchen.  Time to get more ant traps and try to keep them out of things.  There weren't too many this evening.  I usually put the pudding away and my husband gets it out again.  Tonight I got mine and told him he had better hurry before the ants get it.  He said he got there just as they were hitching their wagon to the bowl!  He got it away from them just in the nick of time!  The war is on for the warm weather.

Be sure to check out my specials for the week!  Just click on Limited Time on Fine Art America.  I will have three starting Thursday morning.  Mine are usually on the first or second page.

Back to Chasing Mineral Spirits Out and Ants Do Not have Teeth

I like pastels but now that I have finished my portrait of renowned violinist David Garrett, I am glad to be putting up with a noisy exhaust fan so I can paint in oils.  I read somewhere that visually oriented people have trouble with distracting sounds which is probably why I have to force myself to turn the exhaust fan on.  I also have a hard time with vacuum cleaners and I always cover my ears when the jets go over.  I like all mediums but oil paint is what I love the most.  Happy to be back, especially after a vacation with more aggravation then fun.

As soon as the weather gets warm we have trouble with ants.  This year is much better than past years.  My husband cut back a tree that was scraping the roof and found a number of ants nests near the house.  We hardly have any in the kitchen but we have a good number in the bathroom on the other end of the house.  I jokingly asked my husband if they wanted to brush their teeth.  He asked me what I would want to do if I spent my time crawling around in the dirt.  But, of course, ants don't have teeth.  They have a mandible.  My husband countered with how do you know?  Have you ever really looked that close at one?

I think that as time goes on we are turning into George Burns and Gracie Allen. We certainly are not anywhere as near talented as them, but our humor does resemble their style . I'm not sure which of us is which.