WHILST CONTEMPLATING MY NAVEL
Creativity is a really strange critter. I would really love to write a blog everyday and get lots of feedback from friend and foe alike. But alas the juices seem to run at the strangest times and fleeting ideas are just that----------Fleet!
Yesterday I was putting together yet another new product using my New Jersey Lighthouse images. Why New Jersey you say and not Arizona or Montana? Well, I suppose the unsaid is just as good as a photo of a thousand words.................there ain't no lighthouses out there. Like Willy Sutton when asked "Why he robbed Banks", his retort was "That's where the money is"!
A dear, departed friend of mine lived in Rodanthe, NC for a lot of years and displayed at the Easton Waterfowl show for many years. Dick Darcy, or D squared as he signed all his correspondence, retired from the Washington Post as their Premier sports photographer back when Mohamed Ali was still Cassius Clay. That dates us both because there will probably be readers who don't even know who Ali is, let alone Clay. Rodanthe is nothing more than a wet spot in Route 12 about half way down the outer banks between Kill Devil Hills and Hatteras Village. The big claim to fame in Rodanthe is the Chicamacomico Live Saving Station and Dick's "Art" studio. It took me about two years to learn how to pronounce the former and about two hours to whip through Dick's store.
This store was what you might call an artist's junk shop. It of course held all of Dick's work, the product of an old black and white photographer, and whatever he could scrape up off the beach. Old decoys made by lesser names as well as some of the top carvers he had known over the years sat gathering dust. I think that there was an old roll top desk, just to complete the image. And clutter from a life of memorabilia. He was the closest thing to a true "Beach bum" that I have ever seen. And in that respect I have always envied him.
This man was about 5'6" tall and weighed in about a hundred pounds. I guess his diminutive size was directly related to the amount of cigarettes he smoked. Despite his size he had a dry wit that would be displayed as soon as you started to talk to him. He would arrive at Easton, which at the time was the premier wildlife art show in the "World", with about a dozen framed 16x20 black and white photos. When those were sold he would just sit around and critique all the rest of us. The rest of us would have box upon box of "Stuff" and take hours to set up. Dick would hang his prints, come over to where I was setting up and ask me to go and have some oysters with him. Man knew what was important in life. Needless to say, I would have to stop what I was doing and off we would go looking for some fresh Chesapeake Bay oysters on the half shell. It became a tradition for us. His claim to fame was a portrait of a lab retriever named "Rego" which belonged to one of the Washington Redskin running backs. Sold it every year more times than I can remember.
At any rate, I digress. The year we first introduced the "Lighthouses of Maryland" posters, Dick was just amazed at how many we were selling. It seemed every time he looked up another poster was being signed and carried by his booth and carried out of the place. Now this was a time when all the photos had to have something to do with either ducks or geese but was evolving towards accepting other north American wildlife. I argued that we had tons of seagulls and cormorants on the lighthouses and hence it qualified. Long story short. He took an old 16x20 frame with a blank white board and drew squares with his pen in columns and rows. Titled the thing "The lighthouses of Montana", of which of course there are none. He hung the dam thing in the middle of his booth for three days just to mock us. Proof was in the eating, while he sold most his pictures we sold a ton of posters. Good times.
The poster is in it's third printing and I guess we have sold over 12,000 copies of it. Dick is gone but my son has one of his old black and white swan, flight, photos. I am not sure he know what he has or the history behind it, but I get to see the image from time to time.
All this stuff just spews out of my navel and I have to do something with it. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.
This store was what you might call an artist's junk shop. It of course held all of Dick's work, the product of an old black and white photographer, and whatever he could scrape up off the beach. Old decoys made by lesser names as well as some of the top carvers he had known over the years sat gathering dust. I think that there was an old roll top desk, just to complete the image. And clutter from a life of memorabilia. He was the closest thing to a true "Beach bum" that I have ever seen. And in that respect I have always envied him.
This man was about 5'6" tall and weighed in about a hundred pounds. I guess his diminutive size was directly related to the amount of cigarettes he smoked. Despite his size he had a dry wit that would be displayed as soon as you started to talk to him. He would arrive at Easton, which at the time was the premier wildlife art show in the "World", with about a dozen framed 16x20 black and white photos. When those were sold he would just sit around and critique all the rest of us. The rest of us would have box upon box of "Stuff" and take hours to set up. Dick would hang his prints, come over to where I was setting up and ask me to go and have some oysters with him. Man knew what was important in life. Needless to say, I would have to stop what I was doing and off we would go looking for some fresh Chesapeake Bay oysters on the half shell. It became a tradition for us. His claim to fame was a portrait of a lab retriever named "Rego" which belonged to one of the Washington Redskin running backs. Sold it every year more times than I can remember.
At any rate, I digress. The year we first introduced the "Lighthouses of Maryland" posters, Dick was just amazed at how many we were selling. It seemed every time he looked up another poster was being signed and carried by his booth and carried out of the place. Now this was a time when all the photos had to have something to do with either ducks or geese but was evolving towards accepting other north American wildlife. I argued that we had tons of seagulls and cormorants on the lighthouses and hence it qualified. Long story short. He took an old 16x20 frame with a blank white board and drew squares with his pen in columns and rows. Titled the thing "The lighthouses of Montana", of which of course there are none. He hung the dam thing in the middle of his booth for three days just to mock us. Proof was in the eating, while he sold most his pictures we sold a ton of posters. Good times.
The poster is in it's third printing and I guess we have sold over 12,000 copies of it. Dick is gone but my son has one of his old black and white swan, flight, photos. I am not sure he know what he has or the history behind it, but I get to see the image from time to time.
All this stuff just spews out of my navel and I have to do something with it. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.
