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My Anvil Grows Smaller
| Article
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14551 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1988 |
2,476 Words |
| Author
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Robert E. Kuhn
Robert E. Kuhn is a renowned painter and sculptor who lives in
the Blue Ridge Mountains. His work is featured in the October
1987 issue of THE WORLD & I. |
In a moment of frustration, I gleefully painted a bright red sign, which read:
PRIVATE PROPERTY
NO VISITORS
WATCH FOR DOG
I cemented it into the stone wall in front of my property. The sign worked surprisingly well, for the next day I saw Norman and Martha, two good friends from Washington, drive up. They stopped the car, exchanged a few words when they saw the sign, and then continued driving up the road. The road ends a little farther on, so I caught them on the way back, and explained my predicament.
When I bought the former mission property, it was named "All Saints." I thought of changing it to "Saint Robert's" or to "Bob's Little Acre," but I never could abide giving houses names. When I was a child, my parents named their cottage "Do Drop In." My father even painted it on the mailbox. This really didn't make any sense because they always complained when people did. Home is a good sturdy name, so that's what I call it.
Sixty or seventy years ago the Episcopal Church built missions throughout the Virginia mountains. All Saints once served about fifty families. As time passed, people died, their children moved away, and the once-active missions were gradually disposed of for lack of members. By chance, I learned of the property, made an offer, and it was mine.
The mission sits about three thousand feet above the Shenandoah valley, three and a half miles up a pitted, rock-ribbed dirt road that is cleverly maintained in this condition by the state.
The deed reads "One acre more or less." With the aid of the church, the people had constructed four buildings: a handsome stone meetinghouse, a frame church with simple Gothic windows, a stone bell tower that sat on the ground between them, and a dilapidated parsonage where a lady missionary had lived for over forty years. The meeting hall is now my private gallery, where I keep my work. The church is my home and the parsonage my studio. The bell tower is, as it was, "ringing, ever ringing."
Strangers ringing his church bell
Though my friends hesitate to acknowledge it, I was gifted at birth with a very
...
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