Well, it behooves me to first correct your tense: my marketing "secret" WAS having established a pool of potential buyers who thought enough of the work I did to be willing to engage now and then in minor league bidding wars. I think there may also have been a degree of sympathy involved; I was a university student at the time, supplementing a scholarship by sacrificing much of my social life bent over a workbench. It was worth it in the end: it probably kept me out of trouble and, more importantly, allowed me to enter adult life without any student loan debts. That was nearly fifty years ago. I later had the great privilege and great benefit of corresponding with a man who became a friend and mentor, the late master shipwright Donald McNarry. Over the years I have built for museums and, on a couple occasions, for film and television. I'm resting on my laurels now, alas, as the onset of arthritis has led to retirement from modeling. Now I'm a sort of modeling voyeur, warming myself on old memories while admiring the work of those like yourself who are still active.
