Category Archives: By Design

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ROLLING LIKE THE BUS

In honor of consecutive stellar performances by Notre Dame to open the 2014 season, we’re dipping back into the archives to share the drawing below.  It was done back when I was merely a Tweedlet in Mrs. Davis’s 6th grade art class, and only years later, autographed by the subject, Jerome Bettis.  Long before he was nicknamed “The Bus” during his NFL career, Bettis was a bulldozing fullback in South Bend — though even his physical style might have met its match in the Irish defense on display the last two weeks.  Sure, the now departed Bob Diaco may have resembled Don Draper, but so far his defenses were mere impostors compared with Brian Van Gorder’s Van Goghs.  The first year Irish Defensive Coordinator has a name like a Dutch Master but through two games his group is pure Cohiba.

(Drawing by PaC - Autumn, 1992)

(Drawing by PaC – Autumn, 1992)

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FOURTH OF MEMORIES

Fireworks and chocolate ice cream don’t look alike, don’t sound alike.  My best guess is they don’t taste the same.  But for the way they both possess the ability to delight even on those rare occasions that they’re underwhelming, these smile-inspiring fraternal twins of summer simply must be made of some of the same stuff.

Among all the stunning pyrotechnic displays made in the American skies each 4th of July, there is none better than the show over the waters of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. Give it a look some time, especially if you can do so from a boat anchored in the Chesapeake.  For the full effect, pack your own Stars and Stripes to help set a mood like the one pictured below.

OL' GLORY and the OLD LINE STATE - Fourth of July fireworks over Chesapeake Bay, as seen from the middle of Chesapeake Bay. (Photo: PaC)

OL’ GLORY in the OL’ LINE STATE – Fourth of July fireworks over Chesapeake Bay, as seen from the middle of Chesapeake Bay. (Photo: PaC)

America’s Birthday, 2014 is now in the rear view, but here’s the best flag-centric reading this weekend had to offer:  a story from The Atlantic on The O.S.S.B, aka, The Original Star Spangled Banner, and via FastCompanyDesign, an illustrated biography of the American flag.

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STEALING FROM TIFFANY’S

Twelve years ago today, almost exactly to the moment this post goes up, my eyes gazed on this artwork for the first time.  Varying in size, color, and composition — from small and flat under mattes and polished glass, to movie-theater-lobby-esque large format, to three-dimensional shadow boxes in frames custom made of reconstituted desk drawers — it comprised the then little known passion project of America’s “King of the Football Movies.”  And like the montages he and his filmmaking brain trust popularized, the work resonated with my eyes and ears in such a way that I couldn’t help but imitate it — in part, in the poster below from 2003.

If you’re feeling generous call it flattery, and if you must, call it theft – but then only in consideration of that advice the King himself was known to impart, “If you’re going to steal, steal from Tiffany’s.”  I don’t recall what I had for breakfast twelve years ago today ; I can barely remember what I had today.  But June 3, 2002 — and how it changed the way I see the world — is a morning I won’t forget.

"Wilbury Poster Boys", created circa 2003. (Original poster and photo by PaC)

“Wilbury Po’ster Boys”, created circa 2003. (Original poster and photo by PaC)

MY NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN PHOTOS OF SOME GUY NAMED BUBBA WATSON

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BUBBA WATCHERS

Four days after this practice swing, Bubba Watson would don his first green jacket before uttering, with beautiful humility, “I never got this far in my dreams.”

Just after 8am on the morning of Wednesday, April 4, 2012, I stood on the edge of the 14th tee box at Augusta National Golf Course, a trigger happy shutterbug.  Getting in position early had afforded me a clear view of the hopeful pros making their way through the final practice round before the start of that week’s Masters.  Ignorance of the etiquette for where and when I could snap photos gave me the nerve to capture several action sequences of guys teeing off.  So I shot first and asked questions later, questions like, “Who was that guy with the pink driver?”

I now know that the 14th at Augusta is called “Chinese Fir”, and that the Man in White that morning was named Bubba Watson.  He’d go on to win his first green jacket four days after I watched him practice ; his second two years and nine days later.  Yes, I got shots of Tiger on the tee that morning, and I like them, too.  But none more than these images of Bubba just before takeoff, lightning as accidentally bottled as it’s ever been.

 

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(All Photos: PaC)

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2003 – WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT

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Vince Guaraldi’s piano stylings … Lucy pining for real estate … Charlie Brown dropping knowledge on the Peanuts, in spite of himself.  Lots of “kids stuff” gets better and more meaningful with age, but none more so than “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, the inspiration for the very cut-and-pasted second card ever.

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2004 – CATCH THE CLARK, HOLD THE GRISWOLD

                                                                                                                                                                                           

Proofs of the cover and inside of the ’04 edition, inspired — and autographed by — the great Walter Iooss, Jr.  If you never have, you really should catch him.