Description & Dedication

2004 Calendar: Barns, Tractors, & Covered Bridges

Time. This calendar measures time — days, weeks, months that comprise a year (and a month) and depending when you look at it, it could represent all future time, a combination of past, present and future days or time past.

Time is one of those funny concepts that changes with each moment. I snap a photo or draw lines that become a picture in an effort to distill an instant. These drawings represent the fun times I had taking pictures of barns, bridges and tractors (crafted with skill and care in another era) and the time spent drawing repeated tiny lines that become my calendar illustrations, my own timelines.

I drew my first calendar in the early 70’s. Those calendars were individually sketched with messy India ink — now I draw them with a technical pen (no more dipping the nib into an inkwell). It usually takes me six months to draw the illustrations, then I use a computer to help with the numbers, make a paste-up and take it to “Printer Dave” to produce multiple copies on an offset press.

Many people offer input — Vesta Beach phoned me about the sprawling barn in Whitney Point on a dead-end road past the school. Aunt Lu provided pictures of my cousin, Hubbie, (really Dr. Bruce McKee) sitting on his grandpa’s lap atop a tractor on their Texas home place in the 40’s, an old John Deere that he’s restoring, and a recent one of him in front of his blue New Holland. My Dad and I took photos of Lloyd Moore’s North Orwell, PA, barn on Rt. 187 near Aunt Ruth’s home after one of our many Cook lunches.

I admired Raurie and Joel’s newly acquired Farmall from Melvin Pierce; Raurie and I graduated from CV with his son, Richard. Speaking of CV, the big gray barn on Route 12 belonged to the Quinn family, and Miss Quinn taught us 9^th grade Algebra at CV. A mammoth barn makes the entrance to the free parking at the Delaware County Fair in Walton, NY, a grand fair in every way, complete with farm animals, machinery, flowers, quilts, and blistering heat.

My son, Joey, and I enjoyed an outing to photograph three of the bridges of Delaware county on an overcast opening day of trout season, 2003. What dramatic hilly scenery! Over the years, I've taken lots of Afton barn pictures, including the old Glen Farm on Long Hill Road, and the magnificent oak tree framing a farm on Morgan Hill Road after a big snow. Every Labor Day weeked Rudin’s Olde Tyme Farm Days near Owego showcases old farm equipment and tractors where I snapped a quick picture of a classic John Deere. Bud Jones also lent me a photo of his son-in-law’s Farmall.

Thanks to Dan, Jim, Rachel and Joey, who allow me to indulge myself marking time in this way. They see a lot of my back as I sit in the living room corner, drawing.