SOLD The Basement Door, Day 4

I am mixing it up a bit, that was actually painting 12. Sorry for the glare, it's rainy here and its hard to get a good shot without the sheen coming through!

My father owned a small printing company, The Print Shoppe, that I cut my teeth in as a boy. He used the printing company as a way to distribute his editorial cartoons as he was self syndicated. I learned how to use an offset printing press, I developed printing plates, I did layouts using light tables and a xacto knives, I used industrial paper cutters, learned to make pads of paper, create halftone screens in the darkroom, all kinds of good stuff that has really come in handy this day and age... especially being able to write upside down and being able to read in mirror reverse. This was before the computer age. Once that dawned, my father got out of the business. He had been illustrating for Jeff Foxworthy for a few years and no longer needed to support the family with the printing business, although it was dying out.

I wish I still had all of that old equipment, I think offset is comping back in a boutique kind of way. I miss the smell of a print shop.

Growing up in a business off the court square in a small southern town certainly has influenced my subject matter. I walked through this door more times than I can count as a boy and as a man.

SOLD, The Basement Door, Day 4, 30 in 30, 5x7, oil on linen, $100, purchase here