Thank You For being Patrons

First off, I want to thank the entire staff at the Custer County Art & Heritage Center in Miles City, Montana, for asking me to participate in their recent exhibition. There were five artists in the portion of the show entitled Inside Out: A landscape exhibit, and myself with Old Paper New Art. The opening was held on Sunday, October 9th in the afternoon, with demonstrations and gallery talks. It was fabulous. I really couldn't have wished for a more splendid venue.

I didn't have a chance to do much demonstrating, although I did try to finish a Thank You for a piece of art I'd finished the week before, but I spent most of my time on the gallery talk, and answering questions as they were asked.

Kevin and Marie purchased "Have Duster, Will Travel", which I posted way back in November of 2010. It was a fun piece to do, but now I have to come up with an even better eye-catcher to hang on the wall.

Kathy purchased "Startup With a Coke", which I completed in June of 2009. A back story that was simply too good to be true, and both my wife and I will find it hard to replace it on our wall.

Bess purchased "Ming Trout Flies", which I completed in 2010. I did not post this piece when I completed it, primarily because I needed to get it to the framers before the Western Heritage Show. I've now sold every piece of (trout) fly paper I could put my hands on.

Dustin & Erin purchased "Five Feet In the Air", which I completed earlier this year. Here again, I don't know how long it will be before I see another piece of Brown Shoe Company paper, but I sure wish I could find some. Buster & Tige are still popular after all these years.

As is my rule, I will not put addresses on any of the mail art I put up here without prior approval. These four pieces will go in the mail in the AM.

PFF #11 First Date

Marie's idea of a theme this week is MAIL Babies. My contribution predates the baby delivery thing by more than 9 months, or at least it should. I actually decided to post this one after looking at the Tattered and Lost EPHEMERA blog all week, looking at early illustration advertisements for Coca-Cola.

This one was a lot of fun, although I chose early Fifties for the time period, I remember the Rockola booth Jukebox selectors from the Snack Shack in my hometown when it came time to do this cover. The title was also a play on words, since the Love stamp First Day of issue was the reason I did this in the first place.

And that's two paper straws and a single cherry in a cool, refreshing glass of ice cold Coca-Cola. Who gets the Cherry?

STARTUP With A COKE!

The Startup Candy Company has been in business in Provo, Utah, since 1875. The company is listed in Ripley's Believe It Or Not as the very first candy company to make a filled chocolate candy bar in America. The Startup family still makes that filled candy bar, called the Opera Bar, and still uses some of the same molds and equipment as they did when the company went into business. They were also an early distributor of Coca-Cola, and hence the sale of that product to Mr. L. C. Ford Junior, of Lima, Montana. Mr. Ford's father was the railroad doctor for the Oregon Short Line Railroad. When the Oregon Short Line was purchased by Union Pacific, Dr. Ford was out of a job, and moved himself and his family to the first real settlement of any size on the North side of Monida Pass, which was Lima.

According to the Historical Society in Lima, his kitchen table was also his operating table. Patients were brought in the front door, and if they didn't make it - they were taken out the back. His son opened a Drug Store/Pharmacy directly across the street, and I would bet that among the various glass fronted cases and lidded jars on his counter was an assortment of the candies made by the Startup family.

When I first was given this piece of paper, I thought it would be an easy task to find the right 'ingredients' for a visual fish to hang on the "Startup" hook. It took almost a month to finally find someone who could give me an image of the 'right' Coca-Cola bottle and the 'right' label to go with it. A gentleman from Atlanta, GA, by the name of Mr. Bill Baab was kind enough to send me not only a bottle that is proper for 1908, but also a copy of an original paper label, also proper for the period. And he sent them both to me on HIS DIME. I was blown away by the willingness of a total stranger to send me all the right pieces to put the puzzle together.

Thus, Mr. Baab, this Coke is for you!