itchy

I am enjoying scratching away black in the evenings…here are two more scratch boards that I have done the last couple of weeks.  The first is from a statue at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C.  Spent a beautiful day there week before last.  Wish I could live there…
This one is from another of my grandfather’s photographs…my uncle (as a boy) looking a little like Tom Sawyer…  See that unsettled look on his face?

 

And speaking of my grandfather…

While at the annual Arts and Crafts Conference at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, we watched a documentary called “The Mystery of George Masa,” a Japanese photographer in the early 20th century who somehow ended up at the Grove Park.  He knew little English, had no known relations in America and no one really knew how he ended up in Asheville, but he made his home there and at times, thrived.  He became known as the Ansel Adams of the east, beautifully capturing the smokey mountains on film.  He even helped the government survey the mountains and document the peaks on his photos.

George Masa’s story touched my heart and I so wanted my grandfather by my side to ask him if he had heard of Masa as a young man…north Georgia isn’t that far from Asheville!  Perhaps you have heard of him?