What’s With That House
company when they were liquidating. Maybe he could paint
custom shades and sell them. He made his rendition of N.C.
By Liz French
Whyeth’s Rip Van Winkle.The shade is electronic and can be
lowered or raised with the touch of a button. We took it to differ-
ent retail stores but besides saying how nice it was there was
no interest. The time Harry had invested in the shade made the
Every artist knows that the hardest part of being a professional
price “unreasonable” as least for this area.
artist is marketing and selling your work. When the company
that you work for closes its doors it can be devastating in more
than just a financial way. That’s exactly what happened to Air-
brush Artist Hairydidit. Harry had moved from Nashville, Ten-
nessee where he had been painting entertainer coaches since
1989, to Angola, Indiana. He had been asked to be the artist
exclusively for Angola Coach, a company that built custom de-
signed conversion coaches for the private sector. Not just RV’s
mind you, these were the top of the line 45’ Prevost, million
dollar coaches, on the road homes for the elite. Harry had been
painting the outside and sometimes the inside of these man-
sions on wheels since 1996.
When Angola Coach closed its doors in 2001 that was the end
of Harry’s sometimes overly busy career and his substantial in-
come. So what does an artist do to market himself in a small
Midwestern community? Good question.
Harry put the word out that he was available. He painted a few
motorcycles and cars, contacted body shops and custom shops,
painted the family cars to be “rolling billboards”, all to no avail.
Bored and frustrated he decided to take a little time to make
something for me. Knowing that I grew up in California and that
I missed the ocean he painted a beach scene on a larger shade.
He stapled it to the wall and trimmed it with regular wall trim
He didn’t have his own shop so doing custom automotive was
and there was my window to the beach. I bought a little patio set
only going to work if the customer had connections with a shop
so I could relax at the beach. Harry took one look and decided to
or if Harry could get one of the local shops to allow him to use
give the room a more authentic look. Based on the pattern on
their facilities. A few jobs were accomplished this way but what
the table he painted the floor to look like tiles, the wall around
a struggle to make things go smoothly. Lack of work forced Har-
the beach to look like a block wall with an “entrance” to the
ry to figure out something else. With nothing to invest he was
beach, the wall around the table with a Mediterranean stucco
forced to use materials he already had. It started with a roller
effect with bricks here and there peeking through. He was on a
shade one of his friends had brought home from the coach
roll and it didn’t stop there.
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32