Something Special

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.

I love painting glass, and the glass in this piece turned out exactly as I imagined it. Lots of “shiny” and reflections, and very high contrast. And lots of detail. I always work hard to capture logos and type as closely as possible.

When I delivered the original and first run of prints, we had a “viewing” with the president and several of the employees. The comment from the president was, “This is special.” It was for me as well. It’s one thing to paint something for folks who have an affinity for a certain thing, but it’s always extra-special when the subject resonates with me as well.

I hope you enjoy looking at the finished product as much as I enjoyed painting it.