(Apologies to James Joyce for the title)
(I don't believe I ever posted this on mybloggers, so...)



I was 33 and it was 1973. I took the photo using my Nikon FT, a tripod and the 15 second delay. It was in my basement studio in the house my first wife and I owned in Peninsula, OH. I taught graphic design at The University of Akron and she taught fiber art and enameling there. I had left the advertising agency business to teach full time, but I also operated my freelance studio - The Running Dog Design Company - out of my renovated barn. My clients were Sherwin Williams (Paint Co.), The Cleveland Orchestra, Mohawk Tire and a slew of small medical organizations. At the school I taught graphic design courses to four-year program students and commercial art to two-year students. I also was the faculty advisor to nearly a hundred of the two-year kids. It was a very busy time of my life.

My first wife and I traveled. Every year we went either to Europe, the Caribbean or the Rockies (ski trips) AND the west coast. I remember we had one of those dual (Mr. and Mrs.) passports. Every page was filled with entry stamps.

Carol still owns the house and is an active regional artist with a national reputation. We are friendly. We had two dogs and a cat then, ten acres (half of it thick woods) and a 1-acre vineyard. We made gobs of wine and drank it all. Our lawn was so large it took a day and a half to mow it with a riding mower. Carol is responsible for my becoming a pretty damn good cook. All I had to do was watch her and occasionally help her in the kitchen.

I was a very active acrylic painter, completing about twenty works a year. They were all large. The painting behind me in the photo is a 5-foot square chocolate cake. I used brush and airbrush, and the paintings were very realistic. That year I won a prize in the Cleveland Museum of Art May Show and I had a one-man show and was half of a two-man show (I sold many paintings.) My brother in Florida owns the painting in this photograph.

I was filled with art and engaged it with full frontal effort. One of my large works, a painting about nine feet wide by six feet tall, was a commission for a corporate HQ in Cleveland. I had to rent a truck to get it there and hired two students to help me hang it. I had a painting on loan to the Ohio Governor's office and it hung right behind his desk.

I long for those days. Home-made wine, art and rock and roll! I also long for the hair I had then (including the color.)

I looked like a "Hippy." I wasn't. Hippies had VW microbusses and wore tie-died shirts. I owned a Jeep and a Fiat 124 Spyder, preferred crushed velvet jackets and Fry boots or Charlie Taylor tennis shoes (which I even wore with suits!) I didn't smoke ganja, do acid or indulge in 'free' love. I was just too damned busy.

POSTSCRIPT: After Carol and I split up in 1976 I moved to the coast. I got back in the ad agency game. In about 1981 I had married again and had a house. I did three years of intensive painting in my garage studio. I had a show. Then I stopped painting again.

When I moved back to Ohio in 2005 I discovered the boxes of paints and brushes, along with some long ignored empty frames and canvases. I brought them all with me, dusted them off and started it again two years ago.

It feels good. It's like wine, art and rock 'n roll.