Before Herb Detweiler and Judith Damon signed the final papers to purchase their Southwest Roanoke home, Herb was out at Hilltop Mulch near Boones Mill putting X’s on boulders he wanted moved to the property.

“Most people who move are trying to figure out what curtains to hang. No, we started with boulders,” Damon said recently, seated in the home’s living room.

Windows from that living room – and from Damon’s studio and the couple’s bedroom overlook a landscape of art within art.

Detweiler, an ordained minister whose outside work years were spent marketing insurance plans to churches and ministers, created a hillside waterfall that rushes heartily to a three-foot-deep pond that is part of a patio.

Rainbarrels, which soon will become works of art under Damon’s brush (downspouts will be snakes), help supply water to the landscape plantings and the pond that recirculates some 6,000 gallons of water when operating.

Although Detweiler brought in a backhoe and supervised considerable digging and filling, his plan carefully preserved an established lilac tree, which now pokes from four feet below up through a rock wall surround. The surround was built to protect the tree and walkers meandering down his hillside.

Plantings as routine as water lilies and a butterfly bush have been combined with lesser knowns, such as summer poinsettias, to tie the pond to the footpath and a lattice niche that serves as background for Damon’s lifesized sculpture, “Lucy.”

“Lucy” is a model for a figure in the “World Embracing” sculpture Judith created for the Townshend International School in Hluboka, the Czech Republic.

Judith spent a month working with local foundry staff in Hluboka to cast the sculpture of children from different countries dancing hand-in-hand around a world globe.

The Czech Republic commission came as a result of a school
official seeing a similar small sculpture by Judith in her downtown Roanoke studio. Judith now has her studio in her home and encourages customers or the curious to visit and see her work and Herb’s.

“I want to share my art with people,” Judith said.

For that reason, she rented a worksite inside Towers Shopping Center’s upper level while creating the clay model for “World Embracing.” Recently, she again was in Towers’ quarters working on “The Hokie Bird,” a 10-foot sculpture that by fall should perch inside Cassell Coliseum in Blacksburg.

The Detweiler-Damon property near Virginia Western Community College, the Czech Republic and Hokie Bird works, even the Detweiler-Damon union are the results of Herb and Judith’s exuberant willingness to seize opportunities.

Their marriage is not the first for either. It took place a month after they were introduced through a dating service at age 50. Detweiler, divorced and in a new city, Boston, signed up for introductions through the service to meet people. He
had met and rejected his allow-
able number of “dates” by the time the service connected him with Judith.

Divorced from a first husband and widowed after a second marriage, Judith had been pushed toward the service by a relative. But when she called she was told her chances of making a connection – at age 50 – were not good.

Her first meeting was with a doctor who brought a briefcase of photos showing himself in various work and community settings as a way to demonstrate his value. The doctor never said a word about the renovated kitchen in Judith’s historic house. The kitchen was so unusual, Judith had decided to use the “dates’ ” reaction to it as a clue to compatibility.

The doctor never mentioned the kitchen even though he spread his photos out on the counter. He said he would call her when he returned from a trip in three weeks.

By then, she had met Herb and they were engaged.

Herb thought the kitchen was wonderful when he arrived to first meet Judith. That was 20 years ago and throughout that time his salesmanship and her artistic bent have proved to be a dynamic match.

Judith, a fine arts graduate of Bennington College, specializes in oils and sculpture, especially bronzes. She taught art for many years as well as creating art. Before moving to Roanoke, she exhibited at the Rockport Art Association and the Copley Society in Boston and was chosen for the National Exhibition of Contemporary American Women Sculptors, held in New York City.

She exhibits works in the Roanoke region at Gallery 108 in Roanoke and the Little Gallery at Smith Mountain Lake. Works are also displayed on the website of JRD Art.com.

Herb and Judith moved to Roanoke nine years ago when Herb retired from business. They wanted to trade Boston for a smaller community that had a symphony and a chorus (Herb’s requirements) and a strong arts community (Judith’s request) and mountains, which they both liked.

Judith recalled visiting Roanoke when she and her first husband came for his interview with Carilion Health System. He didn’t go to work for Carilion, but she
remembered she had been impressed by the view of the mountains when they arrived at the
airport. She also was familiar with the area because her son went to Virginia Tech.

The couple came to Roanoke for a long weekend, found a house to rent and then moved.

“We did not know anyone,” Herb said.

Judith rented space at Studios on the Square, which has since moved, and Herb joined the Roanoke Valley Choral Society and now sings with the Roanoke Symphony Chorus.

A year later they purchased their home and Herb began his building project that included a sunroom that serves as her studio until he completes a new studio over the garage.

Herb also serves as president of JRD Art and marketed his wife’s talent to Virginia Tech’s Athletic Foundation and the Roanoke Valley Hokie Club.

To do that, Herb put together a marketing package that was pure illusion. He used PhotoShop computer software to enlarge a photo of a shelf-size Hokie Bird. He then combined it with a photo he took of visitors gazing up at the D-Day War Memorial near Bedford, except the bird replaced the memorial. Then he put it all together with a view of Tech’s coliseum.

Judith thought the proposal was a bit far-fetched. “I didn’t want to tell any of my friends about it,” she said.

The pitch worked and Judith had a bird to build. Its final destination will be in the new memorabilia area to be constructed as part of Lane Stadium’s West Side expansion.

Judith now has two goals: To see Hokie Bird installed this fall in its temporary home and to restrain Herb from further promotion efforts until she can get a break from work.

“I have to watch him,” she said. “In his own right, Herb is every bit as much of an artist as I am. I don’t dare let him get his hand on a brush.”