East Coast Artie

I bitch and whine about working on weekends. And it’s true, I’m missing the local Flood Run as I write this. But damn it, there’s a lot of pleasure to be had from spending a quiet Saturday giving voice to my thoughts and the ideas of others. Of collecting those ideas into useable content and arranging that content – with photos – into what will soon be a useful book.

In years gone by I would work late in the darkroom, turning negatives into positives with nothing but music for company. Now, on Saturday and Sunday, I can choose and massage images that are already positives, with that same long-time friend for company.

Sometimes the closest I get to a motorcycle on Saturday is choosing images like this one of Howie Nisgor pinstriping a Gold Wing.

The cell phone is turned off and so far I’ve avoided any temptation to check in on that evil monster and thief of time called email.

Old funky blues and country, with a few current tunes thrown into the mix, resonate off the walls. There’s no one else here to hear it, so let’s crank it up one more notch.

It turns out I do love making books. All the parts involved in that process. Finding the germ of an idea, and implementing a plan to nurture that seed into a book. Whether the words and images are mine or belong to someone else, I enjoy the challenge or arranging all that material into a product that people find enjoyable and useful and – I hope – educational as well.

What I don’t particularly like, and the reason Saturdays have become my preferred workday, is the business side of the business. Decisions about who gets paid this week, what to do about the fact that my sales person just quit without any warning, and how many books to order, bog me down.

For me, part of the pleasure comes from meeting pinstripe artists like Mikey Frederick, shown here finishing a panel.

Today though, I don’t have to worry about any of that crap. I can spend my time doing the last edit for our Pro Pinstripe book, with no one but BB and Waylon and Elvis (Costello) looking over my shoulder. And on Monday morning I can look back at what I accomplished and feel pretty good. Good enough to punch-in at the time clock, sit down at my desk, and check my email.

Designing the pages and picking images like this of East Coast Artie - from our new Pro Pinstripe book - is what makes it fun.