John's Shoe Shop - Silk Screen on Glass - only one of two pictures hanging on my wall - (the other is my maternal grandmother's 8th grade class at St. Stephen's). It took many hands to make this finished project. First off - my friends at Big City Signs in Ferndale - CLICK HERE for more on their wonderful shop - Bob Hovanec and Pat Kerr
kicked off the project. Bob is working on pieces for a new show.
Bob looking for ideas for his show - decided a picture that I had posted in the past of my grandfather's shop fit the bill - so he worked to exactly recreate the window. Me and my brother Bob Cacicia - went to the shop on a Saturday morning and were taught the fine art of silk screening and exactly what goes into the creative process. Simply amazing if you ask me! After leaving the shop with my treasure....next came to problem of how to present it.
After thinking and thinking about it - I came up with the idea of having my grandfather standing inside his shop - looking back out the window - as if you are standing outside - looking inside his shop. Then came the problem of what should his shop look like. Not having any pictures of the inside - I found this generic image of an old shop - though not a shoe shop. Next - I cut out an image of my grandfather standing in front of his actual shop - but not being an expert in Photoshop - that's when my friend Natalie Dreier came to the rescue - since I couldn't figure out how to resize the image. She put both of them together for me - just perfectly.
My clever woodworking brother Bob - made the picture frame out of some old scrap wood from the mill to finish off my treasure. Though hard to tell from this shot - in person - it almost looks three dimensional - because the image is not pressed up against the glass - but set back. It's usually me helping people out with odds and ends when it comes to old pictures - which I love doing...but I have to be honest here and say it was a very nice change of pace - with the tables turned on me - for someone else to do something this beautiful - which I will treasure my whole life!
kicked off the project. Bob is working on pieces for a new show.
Oh my, we have the same couch and pillows.
ReplyDeleteRon - you had me excited for a minute...I thought you were going to say we had the same....grandfather...lol!
ReplyDeleteLisa
This is awesome. My first impression was that this was a mirror and he was looking into it and we see that and his shop reflected behind him.
ReplyDeleteThe woodwork in that shop is amazing. Absolutely gorgeous.