Upper Cumberland Camera; #1233; The Dedication of the Joan Derryberry Art Gallery at Tennessee Technological University

You You For many of us, Everett and Joan Dairyberry, Walter and June, were more than the first family of Tennessee Technological University for decades, they were like royalty. It's

a love affair between a community and a family that still flourishes, as was evident recently when hundreds of people gathered into the newly remodeled Tennessee Tech Art Gallery to honor Joan Dairyberry, a woman who is loved and cherished by all who know her and revered for the abundant talent she has always generously shared. Tonight, we'll feature highlights from the dedication of the Joan Dairyberry Art Gallery as well as visits with Joan on various occasions throughout the years. It's a pleasure for me to welcome you to our newly remodeled Art Center, which we are today naming for and dedicating to a remarkable lady, and we are all glad that you could join us this afternoon. My notes now say

first, I would like to introduce a gentleman who really needs no introduction. And my notes would be talking about Dr. Wallace Prescott. Dr. Wallace Prescott, unfortunately, could not be here today. He's come down with laryngitis. Is it laryngitis? Bronchitis. And so in his stead, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to introduce a Tennessee Tech alum, someone who was the first female SGA president. At that time, was the Associated Government, ASB, Associated Student Board. And she spent many years with the Cookville Board of Education, and it's a pleasure for me to introduce Margaret Prescott. I wanted to make sure that you did understand that these are his words, and I think if any way possible, he would have tried to be here for this occasion. But someone has said greater love

has no man than this that he lay down his life for his friend. But I've paraphrased that to say greater love has no one for his husband, or her husband, I should say, than to give a speech for him. So I will be giving his words for him. March 1915, an act of the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee created an institution on whose campus we've all assembled this afternoon. Section seven of chapter 35 of the Acts of 1915 reads in part as follows, be it further enacted that said Polytechnic, Tennessee Polytechnic Institute shall be made in every respect a first class institution. Could those legislators way back then envision Everett years after that, to accept

a sacred trust, and that was doing what these words said, they were going to try in every respect to make Tennessee Tech a first class institution. Joan didn't come as just a hate member of the staff, but she came as the institution's first lady. However few, if any, of the other people have had as much an impact on the university as we know it today than Ms. D. Plato said whatever is honored in a society will be cultivated. So today the cultural arts programs in Tennessee Tech are both honored and cultivated to a level that never would have been possible without the influence and the efforts of Joan Deverey. For you see her accomplishments went far beyond the astounding production and

promotion of painting, although one wonders this is just a small sampling of what she has created. She seemed to share the same opinion as Michelangelo who declared it's only well with me when I have a chisel in my hand and we might say it was only well judging from the sheer numbers of these paintings that Ms. D was only well when she had her brush and her easel in her hand. She's also an accomplished and talented musician who in the opinion of many experts could have been a concert pianist of world renown had she chosen to follow that course. Lives of countless students have been made richer by her efforts. She taught piano lessons, organ lessons, and some courses in music appreciation before Roe took over.

A former student tells of his experience in being in one of her classes. He was told by a faculty member that he needed to take one of these cultural classes so he decided that he would choose music appreciation. After all he was from way up I won't say what county but he had always listened to the Grand Ole Opry so he thought he would be really ready for this class. So class hadn't been going very long until Ms. D got out what we thought was pretty good back then an old RPM 78 record player and put on this record and said uh now tell me what this is. She knew it was the William Tell Overture but oh he raised his hand right up and after a few moments she called on him and said now what what is this name and he said wow that's the Lone Ranger song. So then on Ms. D knew that student's name very well

but to fully appreciate the breadth and depth of Joan Der Darius intellectual achievements it's very difficult to do but you could go to the library and see her name on card after card. She was well versed in archaeology anthropology geography history and literature because she taught herself through reading. We know that we cannot see beyond a vision a keener vision but we have been lifted up and born high by the vision that Ms. Der Berry has given us. We know that we've all not drunk from the well that has been dug nor have we been warned by fires that we have not set. Among the countless ones who've been fortunate enough and I think most of them in this room to know her

no one could contest that we indeed have not been lifted up and born aloft on the shoulders of this giant of a woman and have all been made the beneficiaries of her astounding work. So we have come today to dedicate this facility and in so doing recognize for future generations that it will shape, refine and expand education and that it will add new and lasting dimensions to the lives of all who come and enter here. So we could do this in no finer way than to declare that henceforth the art gallery shall bear the name of a most distinguished person, Joan Der Berry. I've so many mornings stood

up there with deep mist down here. I've heard seagulls down here but I'd been up here on the top and couldn't see them at all and then you'd see them coming up out of the absolutely magic place to be born really. I mean I was so lucky. It was just really for anybody I didn't then know I wanted to be a painter though I was always loving it and trying to do things but very childishly. Mother kept some of my things but of course they were all lost when they had to leave that house during the war but it was a wonderful experience for anybody who would later come to painting. That's why to this day I can shut my eyes and paint the place. If

you were British you'd know immediately there's an old rhyme. you want the rhyme? Well if you see one bird flying it's the number of birds flying. It's about one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret that's never been told. Oh that's beautiful. That's an old English rhyme. You had a small explanation but you didn't quote the entire rhyme. I just said five for silver I think or something. That's beautiful. Yeah you don't want to see just one quick look around and see another one's for sorrow. It's a special painting too. My five for silver? Looking up it looks up doesn't fit the clouds. That was at the period when again I was following what a teacher once said to me if you want to improve your painting paint a sky a day and for a long time I did I went out there and you'd be surprised how agonizing it is to paint a sky. The colors are so much paler than you can possibly imagine. surely does

stop you being heavy -handed if you try to paint a sky. It's a great pleasure to be with you and to be in this wonderful room and to see so many of these great pictures all in one place it's like a great feast and I appreciate being here. I was part of the art committee for a long time. I think I was the token town person on the committee because it was important that we have good relationships between the the university community and the the town people and the artists and the art patrons of the community and if I have any words to say that would be where I would begin to express to Joan Derryberry the inspiration she gave to a whole lot of us amateur artists in the Cumberland Art Society and otherwise to get started and to keep at the doing of painting

and artwork and I appreciate being here as we dedicate this wonderful gallery as it's been made over for honoring Joan Derryberry. It says I'm to have a few recollections so I'll do that. My first meeting with Joan Derryberry was even before I came to Cookville in the early 1960s the late 1960s something and somehow I had gotten an invitation to go to the Ben Lee Arts course art closed line exhibit out in the country so I came from Cookville and went out there in the rain and the mist and the fog and whatever it was and there were all these people out there hanging up their pictures and I saw this lady selling all these wonderful pictures and I had I got acquainted with her and I said if she can do that maybe I can too so that was

my first recollection with her. The most interesting experience I guess we had with Ms. Derryberry was when Sally Crane Jager and Joan Derryberry and I for some reason early on decided we would go somewhere out in the country I think it was Drive Alley and we got permission to go into this farm yard and pasture and we climbed over the fence and started down to find a place to sit down and paint. Well we hadn't got along his path very long we heard his noise behind us and is an old goat so they put me between them and the old goat and so I remember our old goat following those ladies as we tried to paint. Well she was an inspiration to a lot of old goats

and young lambs and all kinds of people who knew her and who watched what she produced and understood her personality. Wonderful lady and I give her best wishes and congratulate all of you as we dedicate this gallery in her honor. Thank you very much. Joan Derryberry enjoyed the company of her fellow artist and always community minded. She along with several local artists agreed to paint a series of plates which were donated to the WCTE auction in 1985. Here's a clip from that special day. Well I was scared to death I thought it was a wonderful idea when I first heard it but and it was nice and far off and I thought well it won't happen but then when I and coming down in the van was fun

all of us together like sufferers in a new thing but when I actually got there in front of those plates and realized you couldn't touch it and you couldn't paint my usual way with it and well I began to really get intimidated. I will say the it was interesting but when you tackle a new medium and a new idea for the first time to go into a project like this it is a bit scary but it was fun. I think everybody will recognize this tune that we're going to play which has been arranged for us today by William Woodworth. This is another contribution of Joan Dairy -Varys the tech ham. Of

course this hasn't been the first year Joan Dairy -Varys has been recognized for her talent in 1989 Joan was recognized by the Cookville Arts Council as artist of the year. May I say I can't say a big enough thank you it is most kind of you until kind of you come here today that I really hardly know what to say. I've had great deal of fun working with the various things that I have been into since and by the way in about another month it's exactly 50 years since I came to this town and until Cookville became indeed home. Anything that I've tried to do in the past I've always had dear friends around me many of you I've been friends for many years. I've also been very lucky with two things one thing is I've always in every endeavor that I've tried to do with I've had the strong arm behind me of my husband

and his wisdom to advise Dr. Shushmi as the case and also I've had the well it turned out to be a good thing at first what used to be a British accent that you could slice with a knife it's gone now but I did I used to have a lot of fun the old days I used to do a lot of public speaking for Tennessee on patriotism and so on and flags and I one day I I wondered why I was always so applauded and then I sat I sneaked around one day at a 4 -H meeting in the estate meeting that was held in the War Memorial building long ago and I sat behind two ladies who were evidently there on semi -official business and I sat quiet and they were talking and I thought my goodness they're talking about me and one of them said you know

and don't understand word she says but I like to hear her talk. Joan Derryberry is not only the first lady of Tennessee Tech and will always be the first lady of Tennessee Tech but she is truly the first lady of Cookville for all of her many achievements in art and in music and for just being the fine and gracious lady that she has always been the committee felt that it was an appropriate time to begin a friends of the gallery support group and those of you that are interested will find membership information on the pedestal just outside the gallery door and I hope you will notice the attractive photograph of which Dean Carruthers so did you took that right Dean? John and John Lucas and Dean Carruthers took a Mrs. Derryberry studio which is on display and I understand that prints of this photograph are available with membership in the Friends of the Gallery group but so again we appreciate your presence and we certainly invite you to enjoy the exhibit and the gallery. The good Lord has really shown upon

us today weather -wise and it's only appropriate that that this be the kind of day it is for someone who is Joan Derryberry. Thank you all for coming. Sally I know you are a very good friend of Joan Derryberry's did she influence you in your art in any way? Oh absolutely. John became my friend she was the first friend I hadn't cooked as a matter of fact she appeared on my front doorstep in a black suit and long white gloves when I was wearing blue jeans and a t -shirt and my children were very young and it was most intimidating thing that was ever happening this woman with a British accent who's the president's wife she came in took off her gloves and helped me unpack boxes and we were friends from that moment on so in terms of a colleague and just dear friend she was sat immediately. I had not I don't think ever had anyone give me the exposure to the reasons for making art that she had I'd never thought about it I had not really matured and maybe I still haven't as an artist

but she her philosophy and her reasons for making art and painting and the way she thought about things just were a profound influence on me and always will be we paint nothing alike we have you know we laugh about how differently we paint and how differently we think about things but um she was a and always will be a major force for me and why art should be honored and why we create art and our students and every aspect of it. What most people associate Joan Dairyberry with now is her artistic talent although she had been trained formally in her youth she credits her son Walter with renewing her interest. He said um I owe a couple bills give me some money well all I had was a $20 bill so I said well take this and bring me the change and instead the nut went and spent it all on paints brushes canvases the whole work and

came back and said here and I said Walter I need the money I'm not painting and he said well paint. What is painting meant to you? Well at the very least it's meant the most tremendous hobby in the world I love it I love spending time at it I love thinking up something that occurs to me that or some scene that I have loved and tried to reproduce out of my home out of England and the colors over there I must say speak to me so and born as I was right between the sea and dark more the mists which I they accuse me of painting all the part of my living part of my background and I'm very happy painting because I'm painting uh like home you know. And

to look at all this paint that's on these walls and to think how that one little set of paints has volumeed into over 1300 paintings it's just an incredible thing I think it's wonderful we're totally thrilled with this gallery. Do you have a favorite painting of all that she's ever done? I did the other day but it varies from day to day uh I have usually a painting of the day uh and I really don't know what I could tell you would be my favorite of all but I have a lot of her paintings and and each time I walk past one I say oh that's gotta be my favorite so I don't have one no. How does it feel to to wake up in the morning and and look at a painting that your mother has done does that make the day start out right? Oh absolutely you know my whole house my office is totally surrounded with evidence of mother and she's always been a central person in my life and to have her there speaking through me through these paintings is just a wonderful thing I rotate them some so I don't always look at the same thing all the time but but it's all it's wonderful to

have this memory of her makes me behave that's the worst thing you know I don't want to do anything really bad in front of her pictures because she's inside them looking at me. How do you think she would have felt if she could have been here today? Well she would have felt like she did yesterday overwhelmed thrilled happy she was just ecstatic to see this her eyes just lit up and I took her around the room and showed her talked we talked about each of the paintings and you know she talked about them as if they were old friends she talked about when she did this one and where that was and she was just so happy to be here and see them all. And I'm sure everyone that's here today is thrilled to have them all together in a room and there's a quite a massive amount of them here today. That's right I just wish we had all 1300 here that would take the Heiderberg Center and then some I suspect. Well any last thoughts on on the day's activities? It's been a wonderful day I think President Volpe was very kind as nice as

he was and I loved Margaret Prescott's speech beautifully said wonderfully worded and the thing I like most is the outpouring of all these friends who have come to see your paintings again and to testify how much she has meant to them in their life as she has to us. How do you feel about the event today? Well I'm thrilled to be here and in looking around at all of this marvelous artwork a lot of it that I have never seen before I'm really touched just touched completely to the bottom of my heart. Walter was telling us that he has paintings by your mother in the house and how it makes him feel just to have her around sort of through the paintings. That's right we have a lot of her paintings on what we call our painting wall in our living room at home in West Tennessee and it's just like having a bit of mother there with me all the time. Nice Walter if he had a favorite one do you have a favorite? The ones in the building here or any? There's one in my home called First Easter that is

one of my favorites and then another one that's a favorite of mine is over here it's a farm scene well I call it a farm scene it's just no scene with the fence and because when I left Cookville I moved to a farm and have raised my children on a farm and just something about the farm scene touches my heart. How do you feel your mother would would have liked the event today? She would have loved it I really think she would have loved it physically I don't know that she would have been comfortable but people have always been her love and she's always been such a people person and she would have loved to sing all her friends from the past and so many people have told me to give her a hug and tell her hello and it's just been real nice. Also the art gallery will now be here forever with her name on it. That's a wonderful thought it's very touching to me and I'm so glad that my son was

able to be here and that her her grandchildren were here mother's grandchildren I just think with Pitt and and Brandon both being here it was just a real special for me to see the grandchildren and to let the to know that the grandchildren were hearing Mrs. Prescott say the words and then President Volpe saying the words that he said the remarks that have been made today I'm just real grateful that my son got to hear that. I bet that this is a wonderful occasion for you today the opening of the new gallery. it is very much so. Now what have you done to the gallery to change it? I know that's a big a little question for a big answer. Where do we begin? New carpet starting at the ground up new carpet the walls are new this is wood with a drywall right over that which is appropriate for nails and to be able to retouch it quickly. The walls are also now continuous surface so that the pictures can be hung

all along the wall there used to be support buttresses in the way as well as the windows so now you've got a lot more wall space than previously. And do you find that the lack of windows is better for the artwork to be displayed? I don't even remember where the windows were you know we kind of forget about them and we have actually still access to the windows in these I don't know whether Becky can see them or not but that the line that is a kind of a cutout area back here is actually a hinged door sort of so we can open that up to get to the window as a showcase and right now it has banners in it and it usually will have the banners in it but it gives us access to changing the information and maybe putting displays in the windows. We now have 50 lights in the track lighting system where there were about 12 lights in the room previously so we have a much greater ability to control the lighting on each individual artwork that we're displaying the windows of course give you no control so this is a great improvement of lighting also. One only has to look

around the campus of Tennessee Technological University to recognize the contributions made by Everett and Joan Dairyberry. It has been our good fortune that they made Cookville their home. I don't know how we could have been more fortuitously located or how we could have found a place where we'd have enjoyed life more than we have at Tennessee Tech and I remember my friends with great appreciation thank all of you very very much We finish out tonight's show with a special from 1991 when Joan Dairyberry was the featured artist at the Cookville Art Center. There

is a distinctiveness in Joan Dairyberry's paintings they are full of color soft and moody it's almost as if you can feel the English mist as you gaze into the seascapes. Mrs. Dairyberry is a highly respected artist her work mainly reflects her native England along the coast of Devon. Last month her paintings were featured in an exhibit at the Cookville Art Center it was a long awaited event. Tonight we have the opportunity to visit with Joan Dairyberry as she takes us through the exhibit and shares with us her work. How long have you painted? Oh Lord as old as I am I mean just about ever since I can remember I started going to art school when I was eight and every Saturday this was my pleasure I was always I was away at boarding school from the time I was eight and Saturdays were free days and we

did more or less what we wanted and I wanted to go at the art school and I was lucky that there were a very fine one two as a matter of fact in the town where I was at boarding school so I spent the day happily at the art school till I was 17 and went to London to do music. And did you paint in oils then? in fact we were not allowed to we were it's all the training period all the teaching period you worked in watercolor and we were not allowed oils. Do you do any watercolor now? Hardly any no occasionally sometimes I have fun treating the oil a little like a watercolor and splash along with it and that's fun but it usually doesn't result in much. I think though your paintings have a softness that watercolors have. Well I really get annoyed because I think sometimes I'm too soft on the other hand that's the way I see it when I paint it and it's the way I want to do it

so what can you do? I think I was very lucky at the art school at which I worked always made you never let you paint looking at a thing in other words you would go out of doors and you would be stationed looking at what it was you wanted to paint and you were timed to a matter of 10 minutes and you were turned around not allowed to look again this meant that you remembered the important things you know you didn't put in too you left out the details but you remembered basically and as you learned that this was going to happen you really it did really make you look awfully hard at a thing so that you looked thinking I've got 10 minutes I better really take everything in that I want and it made you concentrate when you look and it stood me an awfully good stead especially in the last few years where I wasn't able to stand or go a lot but what I did see I could do a mental photograph of that allowed me to get the main things in it the directions the light the shadows etc so that I at

least had the gist of it in my mind before I started to work and then that makes it that truly makes it a painting and not just like a photograph it yes because you then you have you see the essentials then you see the distances and you see what you want and I think what you don't remember you invent or you see what happens so that it does become really every picture becomes almost a an impression rather than a painting it's funny this is a little slew that

we used to be very fond of painting and I had one or two nice snapshots of it but what I wanted was that there was an old heron that always fished right about here and he was in there and I did I wanted just the little gray slew and the old white heron with the fading light on him and I could not get that heron I painted him looking this way I painted him looking the other way and he didn't look natural at all so one day I got real upset with him and paged him out totally and put water lilies in there and I'm sure there were no water lilies there but anyway there are water lilies now that's beautiful what's the name of that one I think it's just called set a hill on an august evening but really it's a little it's a see it's been titled for the show wisteria in the rain and that actually is what it is this wisteria was just magic it was falling over but this was done

I did a rapid tour with dome kibbons garden tour and this actually is at winter tour I believe but I don't remember the name of the garden where we saw this but it rained the whole time we were there it was very drippy and droopy and but the wisteria was so beautiful and it was hanging over and I think this picture is strictly a lie the wisteria was not hanging I think right there it's not a photograph it was my remembered impression of the gray greens of the drooping trees and the lovely pink of the wisteria as it looked at itself in the water and it was such a pretty thing that I couldn't wait to get home and try to get give myself the feeling I had there of the gray rain and the pretty way the wisteria fell do you make sketches when you're out and you see things like that yes if I and I make especially color notes try to I try to remember the gray green of that day for instance and if there's some special color I do try to remember it also

for anything very striking in a course in the formation I try to make a squiggle on something to remind myself and that will bring back the picture to me my thankful to my early training that made me remember scenes because I can with a very little help remember it pretty clearly we came to this little village which I remembered so well Chegford is a place where we used to come for fishing because there's a lovely little stream there and the blossom was just coming out on the apple trees and it was so pretty I made a little mental note of the top of the little church which of course dates from about 1400 and the little descending hill that goes out through the little village onto the moor and I couldn't I was so happy to see that that it easily embedded itself in my mind and I could come home and I bet that was exactly like that day which again was as usual cloudy

about to rain and and it did it rained the next day off there's a lot of different colors in that painting like there's it's the moors you see it's dark moor and and there is dead heather there and there's some heather just beginning to bloom and and you see right over the end there the seas over there and so you get always when you're on dot more you get sea mists that will come blowing in at almost any time so that very rarely is the brilliant sunshine there in fact I think that's probably the root of why so many of my pictures are rather perhaps pale seeming it is that when I grew up as I did I lived all my childhood and youth up into in Devon that is the atmosphere you're right between them the moors and the sea and and it's so often misty cloudy the tides always either coming in or going out and the clouds move

with it that's why I guess I feels natural to me to do that that's that's a church tower yeah so many of them had the little square old towers built back that thing was probably built in 14 or 1500 and solid stone you know the local stone and they're all over you go about every literally you find those little churches tucked away about every eight ten twelve miles in every any direction as far as this one goes this is one of my own favorite pictures I'm going to retire it and not let it go out anymore this was of a trip I did several years ago with Joan Kibbons it was the Greek tour and we were coming back from a tour of the islands and we'd been held up at one of the islands and I forget just

which but something interesting or something so that we were late getting into Hydra this little place and all their lights were out and they were just ready for the night but when they saw the cruise ship arrive around the bend to their surprise the whole thing flashed into light somebody must have got a switch that turned on the whole little front and there it all sudden was with the most beautiful reflections in the water which I do not have nearly bright enough but there it was and you could even see the outline of the island behind the little beach and it was just a magic sight and I loved it because I loved that whole I love Greece and anything about it and that water is so exquisite so this is a very happy memory of that funny little beach with all the little shops lit up bright to attract people and we went in that late though it was and they were all scurrying to put to hang up things they taken them down and they given us

up the cruise ship up was too late but we were all there and everybody was it a jovial sort of fun mood because it was unexpected. Now is that one that you painted in the last three years? Yes I shouldn't have but I remembered it vividly I had sketched that in and as a matter of fact too there are lots of paintings of Hydra but all I wanted really was the impression I got of the lights because I hadn't done a single correct thing there except that was the impression that I had going in and it was just magic all of the sudden brilliance where there had been nothing this one

I let go too soon I should not have let it show I'm not I wasn't sure that it was ready to go because this one was special to me what I was trying to get was dark the kind of like it is in England after rain on the seashore because I lived down here and I've seen it so often I wanted the stars to show I was haunted by a bit of poetry of longfellows that comes out of one of the poems and I don't remember which but silently one by one in the infinite meadows of heaven blossomed the lovely stars forget me knots of the angels and those lines were so lovely and they've haunted me if he is and I've always wanted to paint those blossoming stars and I didn't want to overdo it so what I have done I've let this picture go before I got it that exact shade of light after a rainy day I should have had it darker I should have had the stars a tiny bit brighter they're all there I want to do this one

over I want this one home where I can work at it it's not really ready but that those words haunted me and I wanted to do that seashore that I know so well as it looks when it's watery and when it's been raining all day and it's beginning to clear up but I haven't got it but I love it I mean it's one I want to work with it isn't good of tintageal but it does show the sort of cliffs as they come crashing down into the water there and this is where so many of the wrecks have taken place in the past those rocks are right close to the surface and yet it looks deep and time and again I have heard the guns go off at night that signify a wreck and it's it's terrible water to go out into but all along that coast there are wrecks because of the way the rocks are right close to the surface but it's a beautiful bit of coast and I was so happy to see it again this we drove

down this was when I was home for that brief five -day wonderful crazy visit we drove down south and we're looking back up north on these cliffs and it's a beautiful little bit of coast and the sea varies from absolutely black blue to green in just oh no time at all it's because of the way the rocks are situated down there and of course this is the famous pirate cove tintageal is the place where so many of the rocks and wrecks were and the pirates would hold in there and slip in around those caves and store the whisky and the sugar and the rum that they got from France or from friendships and then customsmen couldn't get to them there quick enough and they'd be up over the cliffs with them and have them hidden in no time yeah this is famous country for smuggling and that's near your home uh 20 miles up the coast is my home yes this

one I see I gave the name of moon path to it and this is a thing I've this is the beach near where we we had a cottage and it goes straight out across to America the whales is up above it and you look straight west and I've seen that moon path so oh all nights of my childhood are almost this beach here was flat and wide and this is a special uh love of mine this view I've got I've done several of it for this show even but uh well it's just the path of the moon that's all well this is sunset over dark moor because dark moor is 22 square miles of pure moorland which means old old rocks that will grow only heather and coarse grasses and uh it's it's the the beautiful thing about it is many shades of heather that grow all over it and

of course sometimes they're gorgeous and deep in color and sometimes they're like like heather goes rather dull brown at times but it's always a wonderful set of colors that occur looking across over dark moor it's land I grew up in and I love it for that reason home home yes this is king cups in the flooded meadow and I remember one of the memories of my childhoods is going down here they have come up awfully early they come up with the very earliest daffodils and then but they will come up in in ground that is sludgy and very easily covered by the river which floods at this point and when you pick up those things they come up miles of them with roots on them but they are so beautiful when you do get them that you don't mind getting wet and dirty to wade in to pick them out it used to be one of the joys of my childhood to go with mother

waiting in the muck to pick out the king cups because they were so lovely to have in the house when you got them home now this here is interesting to me because this little tower this is a waterloo battle warm memorial and it has on it the names of the men from our town who fought in the battle of waterloo and this river the torridge go wraps right around this it goes back here and the the middle where my antecedents my lived is down in that corner right under this hill this this hill is over it so to speak and that's where the river comes in here and then goes out to the sea so that it is actually salt when you get down here away here though is where the salmon come in from the sea and go up river to dartmore to spawn the dartmore here again here it is in the distance you can't get away from dartmore in the county of devin

it's all over it now this is of course straight out of the a theory legend of Arthur this is lioness and it is nothing but a bare rock but the interesting thing about it is they called it the disappearing island because fogs see the sea comes pouring in here and with it come these tremendous mists from the sea and very often you can be here where we are supposedly in this and that rock's not there at all it's just gone and they call it the disappearing island it's it is the other side of it is a solid mess of seagulls nests and I do say mess because now that faces out due west and the seabirds are thereby the thousand and I tried to do this thinking of the birds leaving for their nests in the evening and the sea I've seen the sea like that a rainbow of colors in behind that rock

and usually it's a very good weather prophet they have a saying about it even uh londie high weather dry londie low rain or snow and and that was usually what happened if it seemed to sit high in the sea like this it it would be a lovely day tomorrow and if it was sitting low and the mist was all around it you'd know it's going to be a miserable day stormy and bad but I had fun doing that that is really I've got a lowering bank of purple cloud coming up there which means it's not going to be too good tomorrow this this in a way is a homesick picture

for me because it's the last little bit of devin than cornwall that you see when you're going out on a liner of course now you can't go out on miles they've got done away with all the great big ships and you fly out you don't see this but this is the little green end of cornwall that you see when you're leaving and uh I didn't know what to call it so I remembered the Blake poem and I called it the green and pleasant land because that's what it looks like coming into it so green and then almost immediately lost in the mists that are so typical of devin than cornwall this was the product of a very happy week my husband and I had we we had traveled we'd been to England and we had got my daughter June and her husband with us and we traveled all around all the parts of southern England that we both enjoyed and when we put them on

the plane to go home we still had three weeks to go and we said let's go somewhere and stay so I remembered a hotel that I had stayed in as a child on the west cliff of Bournemouth high up over Bournemouth this in front of the British Channel and here's the Isle of White and the thrill of this part was that we could watch the big liners come in going up the channel to dock at Southampton of course when we were there this these few years ago there were no more liners they were through but still the ships passed in the channel and I thought of that hotel and I said let's go to the west cliff well this was an accidental picture you might say it's I've seen many a scene like this but never one they're pulling in the last of the net down home on the beach and there's not too much in it I think but the birds are all wildly excited over the top and this was purely a little study that I attempted to get a

bright sunlight and the feeling of the men tired and pulling in the last of the nets as I've seen it many a time but this was certainly let's say an accidental picture it was not really planned now the next one that is a place I know and love dearly my I used to stay with my godmother whose house is right up the cliff looking down on that little beach and that is another of the famous pirate coves it's a slapped and on sands and there is a whole folk song about how they run the tubs at slapped and of course which means that they're running in the tubs full of the beautiful things from France mostly the whiskey and the wines and all the things that they tried to get in free of customs and so there have been many a battle with the police forces and the pirates down right in that little rough bay which was full of of beautiful caves they could

hide the produce of the ships they ran in there endlessly caves that went back and forth under those cliffs so that slapton is a famous name in the annals of pirate history well this is falls that my son -in -law knew about and took us to it's up in morgan county it's not too far from jamestown but it's it's called potter's falls and actually over it I left out the little funny bridge that goes right across the top of it back a little way but you can see it playing but I left him out because that spoiled it it is the last of three falls and the first fall is just one no no more than it's like a trip in the little stream it just falls down about two feet and then there's one that falls down about my head height on then in another bend of the stream you get this gorgeous stream now I left out the great rocks that are over there on the left

and the fact that it goes back into the hillside here I was concentrating on this gorgeous rush of river water which was pouring over it I went back subsequently in the summer and there was only a trickle coming over it so it depends when you're there how you see it but it was the most gorgeous site and I rather thought this was probably the best best bit of water painting I'd ever done I may be wrong but I fairly enjoyed doing it and I didn't know how to handle it because of the tangle of branches in front of it but I wonderful time doing it and I certainly had a wonderful time up there looking at it it's beautiful I always I'm there when I'm painting a place in my

mind I'm right there Thomas Wolfe wrote you can't go home again but such is not the case when Joan Dereberry picks up a paintbrush and best of all she graciously takes us with her