Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Conference Family Portraits

I wrote the feature story over on Uni Watch today.  Back in January I had scanned in all the Conference Family Portraits for the same website - a favorite of mine - focuses on the aesthetics of athletic unis and the minutia associated with the obsession.

Dad had purchased these postcards in 1969 and I had grown up with them - staring at them for hours.  Over the years I have found the playing cards too (they have the SWC family portrait and Up for Grabs on the two decks).  After chatting with Phil at Uni Watch I realized the originals were paintings signed by Don Collins.  I decided to see if I could find anything about the artist.  I found a bunch of neat info on him which lead to this story.

Well now that I knew where he was, I wanted more!  I put in a call to him on a Friday and he called me back Monday once he got back to his studio.  We had a fantastic conversation on the phone, me asking tons of questions about how and why the posters were made - all the while wishing I could call Dad and tell him the history.

No, it didn't take me ten months to write the story, just ten months to sit down to write it.  Enjoy the history of these little gems of days gone by!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I believe my family owners one of the original paintings. It does not look like a print. We have always wondered about it.

BevoTheLonghorn said...

Do you know where we can buy these portraits? I have owned one (SWC) for a few years and had no idea the other seven existed until today! I hope to collect the entire set; any help would be much appreciated