CREATE A Story

When I close my eyes I can see it all again, the people, the places and stories of my friends, the same as it always was, coming home. Living here together, working arm and arm, Giving and receiving grace on the ranch and on the farm — Same as it ever was, from before I was born, Coming home as it ever was — Coming Home." — Richard Arnold Beattie, Portraits, Landscapes and Moving Sculptures

Homestead Road

This evening in our little towns I sing and play guitar songs that I wrote for a book that my friend Dick Jones wrote. He will tell the stories of living in these bookend towns of Silver Cliff and Westcliffe, in our big Wet Mountain Valley, for most of his life. I will play and sing seven original songs that I wrote for the project. Coupled with the Agrarian Voices Project from Wendell Berry and The Berry Center in Kentucky, I have felt a yearning to "come home."

Connetquot- The Great River

I grew up on the South Shore of Long Island in a converted barn my father, architect Robert Beattie, remodeled. It was a barn on the property built by Christopher Rhinelander Robert, a sprawling mansion on The Gold Coast of Long Island. The Pepperidge House and Farm was part of many buildings on the property — the Ice House, The Water Tower, The Carriage and Caretaker properties that were on Homestead Road. In 1966, my parents bought the property from Bill Thompson, the son of Lucy Pritchard Thompson, the spouse of William Thompson II. The Thompson Family started an Artist Colony of artists in Idle Hour who worked and lived their art in a magical village of brick, castle-like buildings on the Connetquot River across from the Bayard Cutting Estate and later Arboretum in the town of Great River, NY. Connetquot means "Great River," and feeds into The Great South Bay. (Longislandhistoryproject.com)

Across the Great South Bay

Farmers, Fishermen, Artists and Sportsmen, rode into town with aristocrats. Planting, clamming, painting and planning, Republicans and a scant amount of Democrats. And they built their mansions and they raised their children, painted their wagons leaving landmarks and bruises. They practiced their passions, built their kingdoms, moats, dragons, and cruises, across the Great South Bay. What more can I say?

Standing on foundations and lawns, covered with seaweed and sand. Making the Nation, Native Pawns, the History of barrens and Long Island. A single bullet in Columbus Circle took the life of Christopher Robert, ruled to be self-inflicted. Julia, his widow, fled to France for asylum. Across from the Great South Bay, what more can I say?

Folk Art Galleries

It seems odd, the yearning for the farm, the salt water, the fresh water. And the farm. I will celebrate my 68th Birthday and my 50th High School Reunion at Connetquot High School, north of the Sportsmen Club and the Headwaters of the Great River. Many years ago, I worked with my brothers and grandfather preparing for the renovation of the barn. We used to play on the foundations of the Christopher Robert mansion, among the reeds and the sand and the scrub oak. Later we would sail the river, and with friends clam with those long silver clam rakes. Up Vanderbilt Boulevard at Vanderbilt's Wharf and Marina, a half mile away from our old family home on Homestead Road, we will raise a toast to our parents, Christopher Rhinelander Robert II, and the Thompsons. Dick Jones says that nostalgic yearning is what brings us back to community. The portraits, landscapes and moving sculptures of people, places and sailboats will always be imperfect. That by definition is what Folk Art is all about.

Richard Arnold Beattie is the author of the CREATE Daily Column and president of Beattie Communications Studio, Sound Century Academy of Recording Arts and Broadcasting and CORE- The Colorado Chapter of the Leadon Family Foundation. For information how you can get involved with his work email richardarnoldbeattie809@gmail.com.