The scheduled pulled a fast one on me this week. I had planned to photograph Franklin's homecoming only to find out I wasn't paying close attention and was going to be out of town during the game.

​Thankfully Sydney Herdle was able to photograph the event. More of her photographs can be seen and even purchased here at sydneyherdlephotography.zenfolio.com.

​Photographs by Sydney Herdle

Last week we shared some of Sue's work from Florida and New Mexico that led her to work she has been doing ever since in Meadville where she was a professor of printmaking and drawing at Allegheny College.
This where I met Sue and we became very close. We seem to get each other and when I got the privilege to get to hear some of her inside thoughts about work. We can and have talked for hours and I'm thrilled how she embraced sharing so much with us here in this blog.
The smaller photos please click on them to enlarge!

Then after Rob got a new job at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, I was commissioned to do drawings of the orangutans and bonobos who lived there. Azy accompanied Rob to Iowa. 
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I also got to meet Panbanisha a bonobo famous for her paintings. Getting to watch her paint was fascinating. I could feel her mind working as I watched her making decisions on colors, brushes, shapes and composition. She was so focused and intense as she worked. We human artists work hard to have the same attention and commitment. 
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Next week we'll see some other work Sue has done at Allegheny and even more work with the great apes. She is currently on Facebook sharing process photographs taken during different stages of her drawings.

A few weeks back I needed some work done on my car and despite the weather I took a walk on Ernst Trail without an umbrella. Then got pummelled. Boy we could use a little rain now. Been pretty dry of late here!

A little slow with posting this week. I'm on the wrong side of a huge pile of work that I'm chipping away at while trying to still move forward. 
I will be trying to catch up this week. I have a lot of sports photos from last week to share and I will get to it soon.
Tuesday I visited Oil City with the Franklin Knights who took on the Oilers in tennis and cross country and took some photos. The Oilers were too tough at home for the Knights winning the Tennis match with a sweep and winning both girls and boys varsity cross country meets. It was first win for the boys in over a year.

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc with life in these parts.

Susan Williams, director of the Venango Area Chamber of Commerce, managed to pull off a modified Oil Heritage with the help of generous sponsors and a lot of sweat equity. The Cranberry Festival followed suit today.

Though moved from the traditional Morrison Park to the Cranberry Mall, there were plenty of giveaways and some activities for the kids. Dozens of cars took advantage of the drive through and several found spots in the vast mall parking lot to hang out and open up their classic cars for others to visit. Kids activities included chalk drawing and painting a car. The festival committee provided materials so items didn't have to be shared. Craft kits were also given out for the kids to take home.

The fireworks are scheduled for 8 p.m. tonight at the mall.

After 10 years in Florida, I moved to New Mexico and taught in Santa Fe at The Institute of American Indian Arts which is a college for Native American students from all over the country. There were over 130 tribes represented there. Sadly I only have one photo of work from that year. At the time I was drawing in a format called a diptych which has two parts that sit side by side. This was a portrait of one of our models alongside a buffalo skull loaned to me by one of my students. 


I need to add here that for the first time in my life I was in the minority. There were only a handful of Non-Natives on campus. I was considered suspicious because I was not a Native American. I was white and that history followed me.

That history was me.

​To some faculty members I was treated as invisible. Early on, I was harassed by a few students who were not at all fond of having a white woman teach them. Eventually they saw that I was a good teacher and everything went well. I had wonderful students who learned fast and did amazing work. This experience was very important to me. It pulled me back into those questions about power and greed. Who has power? Who does not? How does greed fit into that power? What is the history of the abuse of power?


While in New Mexico, I also taught at a private adult fine arts school in Albuquerque. I had been reading a book entitled Chimpanzee Politics as I continued to think about how politics fit into these issues of power and greed. I was wondering how my work would evolve, not pushing anything but wondering. 
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I gain more and more respect for my fellow photographers Anna Applegate, Tracey Scott and Timothy Rudisille every time I try to make photographs on nature. Patience.... oh my the patience required. I'm not sure I'll every quite get it, but in trying I have fun none-the-less.

Oil City hosted a scrappy Cambridge Springs team Monday on the Oil Field. The Spa racked up four unanswered goals as the Oilers had trouble putting shots on goal. Down Route 8 an hour or so later the Franklin Knights took on Maplewood in a tight match that took overtime to settle. Franklin prevailed 2-1.

​Here are a few photos from each game. Click on photo to enlarge.

Going to try something new here. This Franklin business window street scene seems more poetic than real, so how about you all who love to tell stories write a short story or poem for this photograph and I'll print my favorite in the Sunday edition newsletter next week.

What these people were saying was shocking to me. "Justice and law are distant cousins." Really? Should that be the case? "There will always be victims." Do there have to be victims? "It is totally safe." Should we question that? "Why sure we love everyone." That baby is skeptical of that one. "Don’t worry about it…everybody’s happy." hmmmm…are they really? And so it goes with more statements and more questions. 
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I've had this sorta unofficial series called the "Bug of the Week" going on for the last month. Today I made another photograph of a bumble bee on some flowers (hint, my friend Anna Applegate has a really great bee column coming up on her blog The Nature of Things). A little while later I made this photograph above of a turtle on a small pond up behind my house which I liked better. So I thought I'd include him/her with my bug of the week post. I think the turtle was contemplating the meaning of life. The bee is life.

Photograph by Timothy Rudisille Photography

I got a chance to photograph the singles matches at Franklin High School Tuesday. The small Franklin squad, which doesn't have any players from Rocky Grove this year, took on Greenville in an early season match.

Not sure how much longer I'm going to keep up this unofficial series, but figured I'd share at least one more before fall starts to really change things.

This world is surreal. When my favorite professor at Rhode Island College showed me the world depicted by Giogio Di Chirico I found them to be more psychological than real. 30 years later I'm stnding on a football field during camp and I looked at masked coaches telling their players on the sidelines to stand, kneel or whatever they want, but do it six-feet apart at minimum. Those paintings of Di Chirco were not that farfetched all of a sudden.

Oil City coach Dan York reminded his players several times of the team mandate to socially distance when not on the field playing. 

York is happy that his kids are able to play, not just because he's a football coach and loves the sport, but he knows how important it is for his players to be able to have a normal high school sports experience. How important it is to play.

York and the Oilers are gearing up to begin their shortened season against Route 8 rival Franklin next Friday at the Knight's field. Franklin will have a new look with first year head coach Matt Turk.

"We don't even know what they run," York said as he he prepares his team to run his program and what they know best. 

York's Oil City squad has had a two year run of pretty solid play winning the districts both years. They have a solid program with many returning players. Last year they still managed to win the district without star Christian Cole and this year they hope to do the same after losing Noah Petro to graduation. They just seem to reload. Last year they moved into the state playoffs and only lost to a high school that looked more like a division II college than a high school squad.

York, Friday admitted this squad could be better, but, that is an old coach giving a standard answer.
I had asked a volleyball coach at Maplewood this question years ago and got the same response. That squad won a state championship.

Today, this camp had a laid back, but maintained a systematic look to it as they geared up for Saturday's scrimmage. No yelling. Just running plays to see where improvements can be made. Quarterback Holden Stahl tossed a few wide outs and a deep end-zone pass right on the money. He led one receiver a tad too much on another play, but it appeared there was a breakdown in the line. The coaches quickly addressed that and moved on to the next play. 

The first games of the season will be interesting to say the least. No one is quite sure how the band, cheerleaders, teams, officials and so on will quite work into the numbers or ho many spectators or press are even allowed.

​On Thursday Gov. Wolf announced he was lifting the ban on spectators, but the numbers need to be controlled. This puts families in a precarious spot, they want to see their kids play, but if they force the issue they might risk their kid's season altogether.

A couple games elsewhere had to be shutdown recently because parents stormed the stadiums and refused to leave.

It remains to be seen what will happen in northwest Pennsylvania, but as of now most of the games will commence on September 11 and each team has a six-game localized schedule that could be subject to change. Titusville, who had planned to host Warren, has now recruited Meadville for it's first game since Warren had a player test positive and has elected to postpone the start of their season by a week.

​These kind of changes may be likely all season long.

​But for now they prepare to play.

Sam Amendola said what he is seeing is similar to what he saw with Obama in the county. "I'm optimistic," he said Friday as he and a couple dozen Venango County supporters of Joe Biden waved flags in front of the courthouse. Amendola has handed out nearly 2,000 Biden signs already this year which is higher than in 2016 for Clinton. He admits the Clinton campaign was terribly late getting signs out, but this year he is seeing more signs in the area that are counteracting the overwhelmingly Republican county that supports Donald Trump. Even Friday several signs were passed out and taken home.

Amendola and the Democrats know they are out numbered in the county but plan to organize and show their support for candidate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris every Friday somewhere. Longtime Democrat Ed Scurry, who was featured a couple weeks back on this website as the lone Democrat in front of the courthouse, said they plan to assemble in Oil City next week. He said he isn't opposed to being the lone wolf if need be in Franklin. A week ago the plan was to be in Oil City but it rained so much Scurry found himself alone again. So he drove back to Franklin to stand alone there in front of the courthouse with many motorists passing by. "If I'm gonna get wet, I might as well be closer to home," the Vietnam War veteran said.

Two other Biden supporters stood socially distanced across the road Friday. "This is how we celebrate [our anniversary,]" said Bob Hines of Franklin who stood with his former fiscal conservative republican wife, Jan. Friday was their 32nd anniversary. "I celebrated my birthday the same way," Jan said. Jan admitted being a Republican for many years but said she doesn't recognize the current Republican Party. Her husband said that people say that he hates Trump because he's not a Democrat. He takes exception to that argument. "If Donald Trump ran as a democrat, he still would not have gotten my vote," Bob Hines said.

Amendola said their are several large Biden billboards that will be going up around the county and he and several other democrats are planning to keep showing support for their candidate over the next two months until the election. "I'm optimistic this time," Amendola repeated as he handed out signs. 

From Sue, Introduction:

Lori McCool has beena crossing guard since her child was in school 23 years ago. She is the afternoon crossing guard at Rocky Grove High School now with fewer students attending each day. Some schools are doing modified classes with some days in school and some days working from home.
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Not all schools are full-time for students but they are for school buses are back on the road and kids are back to walking. 

Brush up on what the rules are for school bus safety on the roads and know when you're supposed to stop by reading this helpful guide from PennDOT.

Beyond being safe during COVID-19, be safe on the roads.