FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN: One of our favorite places caught fire in the night...

I woke up early this morning; had to make sure the property was ready for Saturday's business. The TV news was on and I heard--as I poured my first cup of coffee--about a fire in Canton, Tx. 

Freezing in my tracks, I waited to hear details, but all they were saying at that time was that it was near 1st Monday Trade Days area...Then I saw the video and knew for sure.

Of course, the whole town is, more

Canton, Texas 1st Monday
Trade Days, on the first
Monday of every month...

or less, 1st Monday Trade days once a month, and has been for over a hundred years. My worst fears were confirmed

I painted this scene, one of a collection
painted: Impressions of The Mountain
This one is among the first to inspire me
to pick up the brushes and get busy.

later when it was reported that indeed fire had ravaged THE MOUNTAIN, and my heart just sank.

Many of you

The other end of the same street,
now devastated by fire.

have read my blogs about life up on THE MOUNTAIN, where Feathermaye and Yours Truly were sheltered by the many good folks that called the place home--if only for a few days a month, but many full time.

Back in the 1980s an artist named "Wild Willy" (he was a sculptor turned promoter) started up The Mountain.

 He invited several of his artist friends to join his little movement, and like a bunch of kids with scrap lumber and a pocket full of gumption, they began to assemble the grandest bunch of shacks and tree-forts you ever saw.

My wife and I felt the unusual energy of this place when we first set foot on it; magical, whimsical and down right

imaginative. A place filled with fellow starving artists and part-time entrepreneurs with a shared dream and a lot of hopes.

Mountain Cat by Feathermaye

Feathermaye's photography and my own impressionist paintings came to fruition up on that old hill and we came to know so many good people that gladly

linked their lives with ours.

Our very dear friends The Ziebers, Laurie, Dan, and their sons Keith and Randy offered up a roof to put over our

Sugar Britches Night porch

heads when we were laid off two years ago.  It was THE MOUNTAIN that they had only just discovered themselves, and invested in; Sugar Britches on The Mountain, as well as a cute

Mardi Gras B&B

little B&B called The Mardi Gras, where we were housed the first few months at the end of that long, hot summer.

From what we can tell, everything on
the right side of the street and behind
is destroyed...

Later, Laurie insisted we move on into Sugar Britches, where we helped that old building go through many changes, working

side by side with the Ziebe

r family, until the building had evolved into what it is now. Today, Laurie and Dan live right there; they bought the little Gingerbread hou

se next door and that's where Dan and Keith put on Karaoke on 1st Monday Friday and Saturday nights.

From behind Marty's place, the old
board walk is all but ashes

The fire, it seems, broke out somewhere down the lane I painted that summer.  Our good friend Marty, a woman who had been on The Mountain since the beginning, who

More Impressions of The
Mountain, I did a lot of
these as well as a few
commissions folks had me
paint of their buildings

knew Wild Willy himself, and who can tell you more stories about the old days, opened up her hospitality to us often.  For several months of that year she stayed up on the hill and would always come by, or have us come down to use her WiFi, sitting on the open breezeway of her building--that's where I broke Feathermaye's laptop one night when we were the only two people out there (it was mid month and hot and the place was otherwise deserted).

When I saw the first pictures of the fire damage, I knew at once that it was Marty's place I was looking at, all four shops that she and her son owned, tucked into the side of The Mountain, were burned to the ground.

Both Feathermaye and I, even though we were in different rooms at the time, searching for news about the fire, thought about the painting I did of the little street where Marty's places were situated, along with so many others: testaments to a time now long gone.  From Sugar Britches, I would often sit and look down that street, taking in the crazy shapes of buildings and poky-limbed cedar trees pushing up through overgrown oaks all the way down to a lone door, which was the only thing that looked back at me, other than Marty's little white sign.

That door and her sign kept speaking to me until I set up a canvas and painted the street; a street that just invited you to walk down its length, to see what was on the next porch.

Some are already saying that this

will be the end of The Mountain. But, knowing the folks there, and knowing the magic of that place, not to mention the sheer will and determination of so many of the fine folks involved, I'd be willing to wager that this Phoenix will rise from the ashes in some new form.

I've seen the Kemah Boardwalk

(just off the ship channel, down in Houston) rebuild and rebuild, time and again after a big storm knocked it to shreds. My hope is something similar will take place here, where we called home, at least for a magical while.

When it was off market, The Mountain was so quiet, that Feathermaye and I used to sit out on the porch while she ticked away on her laptop and I

played guitar and sang along with the night birds. Like I said: it was is a magical place; where

Waiting In The Wings
photography by
Feathermaye

magnetic ley lines criss-cross and Native American tribes once gathered; where later the settlers came together for want of a place to assemble and trade horses, supplies, pocket knives and stories; a place to go to see someone else's face, in a time when the next neighbor was miles and miles away.

I'm linking my many other blogs that I have archived here at 'as told by', for you to go back and get some idea about this place and how it affected The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly.  Take your time and look them over; maybe you'll get a little of that magic yourself... 

New Year's Eve Market 2011

Mountain Art Blog

Inspiration on The Mountain

ARTs Cool on The Mountain

A Mountain of Subject Matter

Photo Explosion on The Mountain

The Mountain It's all about the Porch!

B&Bs On The Mountain

People and Places on The Mountain

Calling All Starving Artists

How The Mountain comes to life

First Impressions of The Mountain

There are many more Mountain Blogs.  To find them go to my archive link HERE