The Franklin Mint Renaissance 2001 'Distinguished Artist' award

I was going through my archives (while working on updating my resume trying to nail down months and years) and I found The Franklin Mint Renaissance 2001 'Distinguished Artist" award in a filing cabinet.

It's a solid 3-inch round medallion, 1/4-inch thick, and weighs about 2 pounds in my hand. I got a nice letter that still sits with it. I was in the Renaissance art show at the Mint right before things really started shutting down. I have no idea what art I did was in the show. 

I did conceptual product design art for them for a wide variety of collectible products. I had done all my work traditionally, as there were only a few who were doing stuff digitally. I think there were only two guys who did everything completely digitally in there at that time. Everyone else was mostly using traditional art mediums. 

I was there from June 1997 to September 1999. I started as a freelancer, then several months later was invited into the in-house art department where I had a cubicle. They let me go (with a bunch of other creatives in late '99), and I was then doing freelance for them in 2000 to 2001. What happened then is what just happened just recently with Disney getting rid of the in-house conceptual design department for Marvel Studios. They gutted the department and are just bringing people back on a contract basis per-film. 

Things were slowly changing there at the Mint in the fall 1999, you could feel a shift in the air there.

Luckily, there was a bright spot! 

I had, literally, just done my Scooby-Doo audition around that time... and it changed everything...  

Talk about perfect timing! It was an absolute game-changer for me! The last three months of 1999 were the start of non-stop Scooby-Doo projects for me that led straight through into Summer of 2001!

I still have fond memories of The Franklin Mint! 

I would also get some freelance work a couple years later when one of the Mint's art directors had started working for The Bradford Exchange!

Some new photos of the award are below and I added it to my awards list on my LinkedIn profile.

S.H.S. "Arts Hall Of Fame" Plaque Is Now Hanging In The Courtyard

I got an email on Thursday that the SHS Arts Hall of Fame plaque was finally mounted in the courtyard right outside the lunchroom in the courtyard. It was bad weather here with the wind and rain so I waited till Saturday to go down and take some pics. Looking at the first pic, if you walk through the doors behind the column there's the cafeteria and on the right is where the wood shop is. If you turn around 180 degrees from this view, you can see the track and football field so it's a prime location! I can have lunch in the courtyard and say "Hey, that's me!"

Alfie was with me but I don't think he cared. He was busy watering the lawn...

State Representative William F. Adolph, Jr. Gave Me A Nod!

After the tornado that we just had here in Delaware County which left us without power and shut down businesses for over a day, I got a nice little happy moment today in the mail! State Representative William F. Adolph, Jr. sent me a little note in the mail over seeing my pic in the Springfield Press this week! Thanks, Bill!

SPRINGFIELD PRESS - Third Time Is A Charm!

Being the "King of All Promotion", I made it into the Springfield Press a third time in three weeks! This time, the pic is of myself and my graphics teacher, Robert Preston. I gave it to them the week after the award but they ran it now since they had a lot going on. Can't have enough promotion though so it's always great!

Back In The SPRINGFIELD PRESS!

The Springfield Press printed my little article of sorts on my thoughts that I wrote a few days after my SHS - Arts Hall of Fame induction! I gave them a picture too but they just ran the article in this week's paper. I originally gave them a photo and the article as filler if they wanted it, so they were nice enough to print it. I was going to post it here as text but now I can post the actual printed newspaper instead. Click on the image naturally for the readable version.

SPRINGFIELD PRESS Features The S.H.S. "ARTS HALL OF FAME"!

Here's the first two pages to the June 2nd edition of the Springfield Press! The Arts Hall of Fame induction made the front page and was the main story! There's me in the pic! My blue tie sticks out! The article talks about the event and then does a mini, mini bio about each person inducted. The funny story that I told about my art teacher must have made an impact as the writer for the article mentioned it! Ha! The center of the paper had focused on the S.H.S. "Celebration of the Arts" show! I love free publicity! You can click on the images for the big readable copy!

My 'Thank You' Card for the S.H.S. "ARTS HALL OF FAME"!

Being that I was just inducted into the S.H.S. Arts Hall of Fame, I thought I should design my own 'Thank You' cards to send to the Arts Committee at the school. I was inducted under graphic arts and it would have been a bad move to buy something at the mall and send it since graphic design is what I do. I didn't have a lot of time to spend on it, but I got an idea and took this pic of my large stuffed Scooby and my certificate with some of my bookselves as a backdrop and I think it came out great! The angle of the shot and how the bookselves run along the back makes for an interesting design. Plus, it makes it so much more personalized than some store bought thing. I designed a whole card but this was the cover image. I used a Scooby font for some of the generic text inside and then hand-wrote some thanks in some dead space that I left open. Personalized stuff is always better!

My Induction Into SPRINGFIELD HIGH SCHOOL'S "ARTS HALL OF FAME"!

Back in February, I received a letter that I was to be inducted into Springfield High School's Arts Hall of Fame! I had graduated from the school in 1989 and now was being honored, among others, for the work that I've been doing since I graduated and for the giving back that I've done in the community over the years for the local schools and libraries. I thought that it was a nice honor after I read the letter, but I later found out how big a deal it really was since this was the 1st inaugural induction for the Arts Hall of Fame and that all of the past 75 years of the school's history were looked over to find the right mix of people for this inaugural induction. Out of the thousands of students, faculty and teachers, that had been there over the course of decades, only 21 total people were picked to be inducted. It was 14 students and 7 faculty members that ranged from the 1950s to around the mid-90s. There were only two that were picked for the graphics section and I was one of them! So it became a greater thrill as I knew more. The odds of being picked were the odds of getting on American Idol or winning the lottery.

On May 27th, the event was held in Springfield High School's LMC at 1pm. It was also the day after "Celebration of the Arts", which is held every year, so the school's hallways were packed with artwork and sculptures and the gym was packed with all the wood-working projects that students had done. These pics are from the event that I or family had taken. These first two pics are of my certificate that I was given after my name was announced and I went up to accept it and said a few words. It's about twice the size of my High School Diploma!

You also get a wall plaque as well that will hang in the Arts Hall of Fame display. After you said a few words after accepting the award, you got your picture taken and that would be inserted later, but I took a pic of it as it was.

And at the end of the awards, we were also presented with an engraved wall plaque that will hang outside the school somewhere that had all the inductee's names on it. This was really quite cool and my father seemed to like this the best. It was sitting on a table there but for this photo I had photoshopped a wall background behind it just to give an idea of what it might look like hanging up on display on a wall. Not sure where it will go though in the school. I'll go back and take a picture once it's mounted. They have several athletic ones hanging up next to the football field in the back but this is the first one for the arts. I can now go there and look at it and say, "Hey, that's me!"

Here is the cougar in the lobby that you see as you walk in the main front door.

Here is the cougar on display in the LMC where the awards were being held.

The cake that we had for dessert.

People arriving...

The certificates and wall plaques were neatly laid out...

The program that was handed out and it had all the inductee's bios in it.

The luncheon started at 12 noon.

At 1pm, the induction ceremony started with Stanley Johnson giving the greeting.

Bios was read and the award was given out by one of these three men: Mr. David Ash, Mr. Robert Preston and George Trout, Jr. They run the main arts section of the school and were on the commitee.

They went alphabetically so it took some time to get to the N's, but when they got to me, Mr. Preston had introduced me and presented me with my certificate! He was my graphic arts teacher so it was special to have it present it to me all these years later.

I went up and said a few words...and told some funny stories...

After the awards were over, my mother took a pic of me with the outside wall engraved plaque. She also had a hard time with my camera it seems since she cropped the picture wrong and my forehead got cut out. My father was taking better pics thankfully...

This was the group shot taken for the local papers of all 21 inductees!

My graphic arts teacher, Mr. Robert Preston, and myself after the awards.

A pic of my father and myself. My mother did better with this picture!

My high school art teacher, Mrs. Wilson, was inducted that day as well! Their was a funny story about her that I told and I'll write that in a later post.

And finally, I gave Mrs. Wilson the drawing of Scooby that I drew in one of my drawing videos that I posted here as a memento!

So all in all, it was a great day and an honor to be inducted into the S.H.S. Arts Hall of Fame!

My DCCC "Rising Star" Alumni Award!

As with the last post, these are photos I finally downloaded off my camera of the award that I won back in late September last year. It was from Delaware County Community College, a local community college that I went to back in 2001-2002 when I had to learn the digital end to doing the art that I do now. I went to the college for one year and learned Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Quark. I guess I was nominated for this alumni award since I've done a lot art wise in the field and my teachers whom I still talk to nominated me to get it. It was a nice night out with my parents and friends at a local casino when I officially received the award. There were five 'Rising Star' awards given out that night at the banquet. As my mother had said as we were leaving that night, "Some people go to college for four years and get no awards, you go for one year and..."

I took two pics of the award and a third one with the flash on so you can see the etched lettering on it. My friend Joe said that it looked like a crystal that should have been in the Fortress of Solitude! Haha! It is a nice award to put on the mantle. I have two now! This one and a fine art award I won from the Franklin Mint back in 2000 or so. Also I've put two press clippings that were done. One in a local press paper and one from the college's newsletter.