in her classroom, she had constructed several huge spiderwebs out of black yarn. It was on these webs that she would hang the best student artwork to display.I had the honor of being on those webs many, many times. I spent a lot of time in her class, admittedly, at the expense of nearly ALL of my other classes. Mrs. Stiles gave me the encouragement I needed and helped me develop my talent. I have her to thank for my understanding of art as a form of expression, my great sense of humor, and my love of all things Halloween.
When I started working in the real world, doing restaurant work, day labor, and helping my Father with his pest control business, I felt like I wasn't living up to my responsibility to my art, and to myself. I continued to draw at home, but working as an artist seemed an impossibility. I couldn't grasp the concept that I could actually make money as an artist, partly because I had never known anyone else who had. I went on like this for many years. I had other passions, theatre was one, and I had the opportunity to do a lot of great plays ranging from Shakespeare to Grease. During my years as an amateur actor, I developed my people skills and found that I was quite adept at developing excellent relationships with the people that I was working with. In short, I have a way with people, and it's a trait that I have become quite proud of.
In addition to my time in the theatre I have always loved to play video games. From my first round of Space Invaders at the Pizza Hut down the street from my house, I was hooked. Console games, like Atari 2600, came next and the world of video games evolved from huge bristling arcades, to the home console system. My brother, my friends and I spent countless hours playing the Atari, then a short time later Coleco-vision, Intellivision, Nintendo, Sega Master System and so on. I had a neighbor named Bill, and he had one of the first personal computers I had ever seen. It was the TRS-80 color computer from Radio Shack. I fell in love with it and spend many, many afternoons over his house playing with it.
So my love of computers was born.
I had been begging my parents to buy me a computer ever since I got to use Bill's, but alas my parents could not afford to buy me one. My grandfather saw my plight and he came up with a plan about how I could buy a computer all by myself. There had been a storm that summer and it destroyed the huge aluminum screened in patio enclosure we had attatched to the back of the house. He and I dismantled the aluminum frame and sold the scrap aluminum at the metal yard. I spent a week cutting up and cleaning aluminum. It all amounted to about $200. My gramps then put the rest of the money I needed, and we went down to the store and bought an Atari 800XL home computer (the best computer/game system at the time) from K-mart. My grandmother called us both crazy, "All he wants to do is play those games!" she would rant. He would simply tell her that he thought computers were "The Future" and that he wanted me to have one. Truthfully, I did little else with it except play games, but it layed the foundation that would transform my life later on. It was my grandfather who was the first to ever truly believe in me. I have him to thank for starting me off on a career that I could be proud of. Thanks gramps, you'll never know how much it means to me.
Many years later, while working for my Father's pest control business, I discovered PC's for the first time. One of my Dad's clients had a PC repair shop, All Computer Tech, and it is still there to this day. On a back shelf in his shop, the owner had a copy of the first PC video game I had ever seen. Wing Commander by Chris Roberts and my already voratous appitite for games had me salvating over it. I started making excuses to go back there just so I could look at the box. I made a vow to myself that my next major purchase would be a PC so I could play that game. It consumed my thoughts, and I saved my money greedily for it. Nearly a year later I finally had saved enough to buy my first PC for $800 and with it a copy of Wing Commander. I couldn't even install the game myself, I had to hire a guy to come to my house and install it for me. His name was Juan and after a few more trips over to my house to install games for me, we became friends.
Desktop publishing was just starting up at this point and I had read in a magazine about a program called CorelDraw. Until then I had only MSpaint to play with, and CorelDraw was a much more powerful and complex design program. My Dad gets credit for purchasing it for me, after much begging and pleading on my part, along with a 7" thick how-to book on it's use. After a few weeks of playing with it, Juan came over for a visit and I showed him what I had made. A few pieces of amatuer art was all I really had, one of them a crudely drawn Starship Enterprise but I was fiercely proud of my work. He loved my stuff! He then told me he knew a guy who needed someone to build print catalogues of the products that he would eventually sell in the Caribbean. I went to see the guy and he hired me on the spot, and so, my career as a graphic artist was born. I spent a year with Transworld Import/Export Company, building catalogues with nothing but a scanner, CorelDraw and Pagemaker. When Transworld picked up shop and moved to St. Kitts, I went to look for another job in the industry.
That's when I got my first big break.
In a stroke of luck, the first job that I applied to hired me as a graphic artist The company was SunSail, a yacht charter vacation company based in the Caribbean and in Europe. I worked under a fellow called Bryan, and in his firm but friendly way, he taught me the rules and processes of print design. I worked for SunSail for 4 years, and when they moved to Annapolis, Maryland, I was on the hunt again for another design job. I picked up a position for a local newspaper designing advertisments and worked that for awhile until I got a call from my former boss at SunSail, Hugh Murray. He offered me a position at his new company in Miami called Catamaran Charters, soon to be changed to The Catamaran Company. I worked for Hugh for five years as a one-man art department for the entire company. I designed print brochures, mailers, signage, boat show displays and anything else that needed designing.
After my term at The Catamaran Company, I decided to try opening a business of my own. I learned a lot over the next few years and unfortunatley, I had to return to a 9-5 job to keep myself above water. I've been doing freelance and holding a 9-5 design job ever since and I wouldn't dream of doing it any other way. So that's my story, mostly. There was a lot that happened in between, but I think I've covered the most important parts. I hope you have enjoyed reading it all as much as I've enjoyed living it. Peace!
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