Page 5 - Demo

3Forewordhen John Bower asked me to write a Foreword to Journey%u2019s End, several memories from my childhood (before I discovered the world of Art) came to mind. Like most young boys growing up in southern Indiana, the love of adventure came via vacations taken in the family car. Ours was a %u201861 Buick Le Sabre and, several times, its four doors took us to the Great Smoky Mountains where exotic brown bears roamed the roads, and morning fog shrouded switchback highways. My father would pull over in the mornings to cook on our Coleman camp stove, and the days began and ended with imaginative dreams of pioneers, Indians, and Daniel Boone. These images would appear to me again in the paintings of N.C. Wyeth and other Golden Age illustrators. There were many antique shops along the way to and from Tennessee, and it seemed like we stopped at every one. I had never read a Saturday Evening Post, but there, amidst all kinds of strange things from the past, were wonderful old books with pictures by marvelous artists%u2014and the images stayed fervent in my mind until years later when I would see originals by those same artists.Returning from those trips was always as much fun as going because, upon arriving home, I would continue my fantasy travels. My father, ever suspended in a realm of wanderlust, would pile us into his 1941 Willys Jeep and strike out for dried-up creek beds and deer paths in the Harrison-Crawford Forest. These trips became great fourwheel-drive adventures that reached long-forgotten places like Old Leavenworth and vanished towns like Cold Friday.Meanwhile, back in civilized Corydon, I remember playing on the old Constitution Elm. I would stand on the bridge of the sandstone monument and bark out orders to the imaginary crew of my pirate ship. I%u2019m sure those who passed by thought I was reenacting the signing of the Hoosier constitution in the First State Capitol, but little did they know I was swashbuckling my way past English frigates. That love of the ocean was fueled by one of those old books, and the black-&-white movies that played on our television.So there I was%u2014torn between the love of roaming the mountains and a desire to ply the Atlantic (which I saw on another vacation, this time to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina). I had to decide if I were going to travel by land or by sea! Because the only large body of water even close to me was the Ohio River, I knew I%u2019d need transportation (and the permission of my parents) if I were ever going to get back to the ocean or mountains.It took another twelve years before I would see the ocean again. But, during the interval, a myriad of important events happened. I discovered I could draw and, with that, I set out to render my way far and wide. Drawings of pirate ships, Conestoga wagons, trains, planes, and yes, even automobiles, carried me off.I think a majority of young boys, when first learning to draw, scrawl out a hot rod. My images were influenced by my brother%u2019s adventures in that land of exotic metal and candy-apple paint%u2014California. Len was twelve years older, and he left home to join the Navy just as I was turning six, and I pursued his example in my artistic imagination. I would draw Rat Finks, choppers, and copy anything I could find by the Great One%u2014Ed %u201cBig Daddy%u201d Roth! I know W