The eyes have it in a couple the other

The eyes have it in a couple the other “Faces” as well.

In Sean Kilpatrick’s portrait of “Kilpo,” his father, the eyes, like Robert’s, do not engage ours directly. But where Robert may be listening to his inner quiet, James J. Kilpatrick seems listening to - in fact, may have just heard it, for don’t the eyes seem to widen - an IDEA.

In Cynthia Mahan’s “Howard and Lakota” and Laurie Marshall’s “Young Girl (Latoya Porter)” the eyes are all ours, the first proclaiming pride of fatherhood, the second announcing with a certain likeable thrust of jaw, “this is me, and here I come!”

I thought I had identified most of the remarkable images as I toured the Gallery, including the woman in Dan Lewis’ “Rappahannock Friends” whose attention is mysteriously diverted from those friends, and the. slack-shouldered, white open-toe sandaled EveryGrandmother in “Pearl Dodson” by Barbara Morse. '

But then some visitors who saw the lights on and dropped in after The Inn announced for Laurie Marshall’s “A Span of Five Generations” on their way out. So back I went to find it. And, wouldn’t you know, they had something. Like “Etlan Store”, “Five Generations” is plain, modest by design. Jus’ family perched on another porch, doing nothing but letting the camera see them. A range of expressions, a hint of surrounding, but just enough to give the person lucky enough to rediscover the print 50 years from now a way back into Rappahannock County of the 1980’s, and one captured moment therein.

This “Faces of Rappahannock” is a pleasant show, not at all big by any means, but, as the song goes, “this could be the start of something. ...” Give it an “A" for effort if not always for content, and maybe pray a bit that we might all take some of the time these artists did to take a look at a unique place and some unique people.

David Arnold is a photo editor at National Geographic who lives in Huntly.