watercolor and gouache on paper, 22″ x 16″ framed 25″ x 19″ • $475
“The world is not interested in the storms you encountered, but did you bring in the ship?”
1989. I’ve been in Philadelphia for three years, working at Roberts & Raymond Advertising Agency as a production artist, preparing advertisement mechanicals for the printer, drawing tight pencil comps of projected ads for client pitches, occasionally getting to draw full color illustrations that are printed in product brochures. At some point that year, Bob Sulpizio, who owned the company, asked me to come up with an illustration incorporating and conveying the quote above. A friend of his owned a many-masted sailing boat named the Semperverde – Always Green – and the quote was his motto, so Bob wanted to gift his friend with an illustration combining the two elements. I came up with the art featured today, submitted if for consideration, but lost out to another illustrator whose much more conventional approach to the problem carried the day, a very pretty illustration of the boat on the high seas seen sideways in full sail from a distance (say that 5 times quickly in a row) with the motto engraved on a brass plate attached to the frame. Ah Tradition…
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