To the left is the church were Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson served as deacon; under the distant trees is his grave. On the right is the spot where the Trailways bus used to stop so passenger could have lunch at McCrum's drugstore. Phil "Dixie" Nunn who was born a slave, was a fixture on the sidewalk there, trying to sell his post cards to the passengers. These are only facts without apology or agenda. Mr. Nunn made his own shoes and claimed as a boy to have once held Traveler while Robert E. Lee mounted. He seems proud of both. I thought of "Dixie" Nunn a great deal while creating this work. No one would have called him "Phil" is his lifetime and he died in obscurity. Death is the great equalizer and the gentle spring rain falls now in this historic mountain town with an equal grace on Phil Nunn's unacconted grave as it does on Thomas Jackson's. My painting is of the book of neither, it speaks to chance; a disinterested woman walks the bricks both men trod in life. If there's a knowing past our passing then perhaps there is a reckoning too; if not then we're left to the human state for what justice might be sought; I'll leave the viewer to define by whom.