Rockford Fosgate. The very reason my wife and I live in Arizona. Rockford Fosgate, or “Rockford” as they’re called by employees, hired me in 1986 and moved my wife and me to Arizona. It was a work “adventure,” and accounts for nearly 15 years of my career. Now, some 20 years later, I find myself painting a piece including both the Rockford name and another very popular brand for the company’s president. Giclée prints of the piece are available now.

The folks at Rockford had worked with Maker’s Mark, a wonderful brand of bourbon whisky, to flavor two different barrels to their taste, the bottles to be the stars of the design. I also had a barrel top to work with, so I laid it all out and it worked very nicely. We sold Rockford Fosgate neon signs way back, so I plugged one of those into the background to get the logo and the red color to balance the wax bottle tops. I initially used a gray surface, but decided to keep the entire background black for dramatic effect. Rockford’s colors were always red and black, so that figured in as well.