My first foray into the world of selling art. Best guess is that I was 5 years old. In case you’re wondering, this is a drawing of a chef. If memory serves, the “cents” symbol in the upper right corner was supposed to be a “dollar” sign. Who was I kidding. But, if you can’t tell from the photo, I ran a tight operation.

Amazing color studies created by my stepfather Howard G. Jones, and his first wife Eleanor. I believe they were both in art school at the time. In 1926! The first in a series of posts on analog designs and quirky objects discovered in my mother’s home.

I went to art school with Scott Kelley. We lost touch a long time ago but, today, in my search for rope, I accidentally came across his obsessive paintings of these warp lines, which are traditionally heavy ropes used for anchoring, towing or mooring a boat. In this case, the warp is called pot warp, and it is specifically the line used by lobstermen to secure their traps. Scott does, after all, live in Maine. For more go here. And Scott, sorry for the crop here and there. Just wanted to get up closer to the detail.

My friend Nancy is an accomplished surface designer who, over the years, has created a range of hand-painted dinnerware for various clients here and far. I asked her if she would send me the rough swatches of stripes and marks that are a product of her pattern development . She happily complied. This is only the smallest selection from her archive. Again, it’s the process that catches my eye. Sometimes I feel as though we are losing out to technology when it comes to the incremental stages of creativity. Maybe. Maybe not.

I’ve made no secret of my love for the cigarette card collection at the NY Public Library. Here is a single painting broken into 45 parts. Click here to see the who and the what.