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The "Harpers Ferry: Rivers, Railroads, Revolvers" abstract watercolor by David Ralph is composed of the most noticeable aspects of this old historic town which flourished before and during the Civil War. The most obvious of them being the outline of three large mountains bisected by two fast-flowing rivers that form the junction of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The mountains stand so tall and close that rock climbers and hawks around their peaks can be clearly seen from town. Blasts of dynamite through the largest mountain enabled a fledgling Baltimore & Ohio railroad to reach Harpers Ferry before the man-made canal did - which started years earlier - brought common goods and a few luxuries to the town. Dry goods establishments, clothing stores, fine brick homes, laborer's housing, and beer halls lined the main streets of the fast-growing town. Assembly-lines of gun manufacturers and flour mills once ran alongside both rivers to use the awesome power of the two waterways, the Shenandoa...

David Ralph is a contemporary artist and illustrator currently living in Maryland. David's style of painting and illustration can best be described as geometric abstraction with influences ranging from the cubist paintings of Pablo Picasso to the primitive, cutout shapes of Henri Matisse. Other notable influences for David were Paul Cezanne's fragmented landscapes and the geometrically-divided, flat-color canvases of Piet Mondrian. To David, the simple elegance of the curve, the line, and the circle create the ideal two-dimensional plain of visual interest and appeal. And, to add color intensity, value contrast and balance to this space - along with repetition, texture and pattern - is to create a perfect harmony. It is to this goal that...