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60 Years of Airbrush History Tom Davison and Pat Gaines 1961-2021
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WWW.AIRBRUSHDOJO.COM “THE BUILDING OF THE RETAIL BUSINESS OF AIRBRUSH, from merger begins as youngsters to Learned mentor Retires ... Much learned, Much evolved, much knowledge shared along the way. Airbrushing on T-Shirts all started during the mid-1950. The original Creators of our Custom Kulture Art form are Kenneth Howard AKA “Von Dutch, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, Stanley “Mouse” Miller, Dean Jeffries, and Tom Kelly, these fellows paved the way for the second wave of pioneers during the early 1960’s among them were Ed “Newt”Newton, Russ “the Roach “Rauch and MY Long time Friend, Partner and Mentor Tom Davison. Much of Custom Kulture art moved hand in hand with the Custom Car evolution of the 50’s and 60’s and the Hot Rod “Weirdo” Shirt were born. Popularized by Ed Roth, Ed was the first person to produce airbrushed Hot Rod shirts with the iconic Rat Fink hanging out of the fire breathing, tire smoking T Bucket Rodster. Ed Realized he was really onto something and then started to Mass Produce silkscreened Weirdo Shirts and marketed them through the early Hot Rod Magazines to eager Custom Car and Drag Racing Enthusiasts. Keep in mind that before Ed Roth did this there was no such thing as the “Novelty” design Imprinted Sportswear business ... Ed’s Weirdo shirts were the Gneiss of the multi-Billion Dollar worldwide Business of Novelty Design T shirts that we know today. Tom Davison was mesmerized by Hot Rods and creating hot Rod art starting as a young Boy. Growing up in Kansas City Tom would paint or pin stripe anything on wheels. He started with neighborhood kids peddle cars decking them out like little show cars complete with detailed photos. As Tom grew into his teenage years he (like every red blooded boy of the late 1950s and early 1960’s) started building model cars. As with everything Tom did he excelled. Car shows and drag racing were religion for nearly every teenager growing up during that wonderful time period of the late 1950s and early 60’s. There was a budding T-Shirt Weirdo artist in every high school in the USA using Magic Markers to create cars and monsters on their friends' t-shirts. Tom Davison had done all that. Then in 1960 Tom also had the audacity to approach "Big Daddy" himself when Roth arrived in Kansas City to show his "Outlaw" roadster as the featured attraction in Darryl Starbird’s Kansas City car show. Ed was the first builder to tour nationwide and it was his very first trip east. Tom Showed Roth his awesome model car collection and Ed let Tom set up a table and show his model cars in the booth next to Roth’s famous Outlaw Rodster. Sixteen year old Tom "interned" in Roth's booth that weekend, helping him set up the "Outlaw", fetch hot dogs and Cokes to satisfy "Big Daddy's" voracious appetite and watched him paint shirts freehand for the car show patrons. Needless to say this first hand personal interaction with Big Daddy himself propelled Tom on his life long Journey of Airbrush Art and Love of Hot Rods Later in 1961 during a family vacation to California Tom talked his Father to stop by Ed’s shop... the Birth place of the iconic car show Cars like the Outlaw , the Beatnick Bandit ,Mysterion and the Orbitron. During this visit Big Daddy offered The 16 year old Tom a job for the summer airbrushing T Shirts at his shop while showing Tom an old bed in the back room of the shop where Tom could live. However Tom 3
WWW.AIRBRUSHDOJO.COM respectfully declined the offer considering the accommodations and the fact he was 16 years old and his home was fifteen hundred miles away. Tom’s next meeting with Ed Roth was in 1963 when Tom traveled again to California to accept the Award (from Roth) for the Nation’s Best Model Car paint job in the Revell Model Car National Championship at at a banquet in his honor and other winners at Disney Land. These early meeting lead to a lifelong friendship between Ed Big Daddy Roth and Tom Davison. Tom spent the next twenty-five years working the major car show circuits doing what he loved. His art evolved and he soon dropped the monsters from the rods and began doing the photorealistic car portraits for which he became known in the hot rod community. The art form eventually became known as Kustom Kulture or Lowbrow Art. He was a traveling vendor at the largest car shows and drag races in the Nation taking snapshots along the way. His collection of 500 historic snapshots is considered one of the best to have survived because, simply put, Tom travelled only the “A” circuits and knew the cars. In Ed Roth’s 1984 autobiography Ed wrote about Tom, “Tom Davison is about the best in the business. Ever since I can remember, he was the kid at the car shows that was copying me and Mouse. Tom turned me on to the new acrylic paints and just saved the day for me when I started airbrushing again a few years ago". During these 25 years in the road Tom also mastered the fair and Event vender business. At some of the largest State Fairs and Music Festivals Tom’s T-Shirt Vending business was the premier operation in the United States operating up to 5 Semi Trailer size booths at a single massive State Fair or Music Festival. In 1993 Tom and I meet and partnered with me (Pat Gaines) in my ongoing successful Mall based West Coast Airbrush Company Stores. Over the next 17 years Tom and I along with our other associated Airbrush Artists operated more than 30 Airbrush T-shirt Shops in 7 States making it the largest Chain of Airbrush Shops in the United States then or now. My career in Airbrushing started in Panama City Beach in 1975. At that time there were only 4 airbrush Shops on PCB. Within a decade there were some 75 locations offering Airbrush T-Shirts and over 150 Artists along Panama City Beach’s “Miracle Mile “. In 1987 this is where I first meet Tom Davison. Tom came to work at my airbrush Shop along with others including Mark Rush, Patrick Reynolds and Scott Fitzgerald. I called that airbrushing crew my “Dream Team”. We certainly brought the best together during that time frame. In 1989 I moved my business back to my childhood home in Illinois and opened the first West Coast Airbrush Company in the shopping mall my Father Managed. During this time I along with Tom Davison and other associate Artists including Brian Dillion, Ed Hicks and 50 other artists who worked with us at West Coast Airbrush we evolved the Airbrush T-shirt Business to fit the new shopping mall clientele. All along during this evolution I documented everything we learned though some 60 Magazine Articles I wrote for many Imprinted Sportswesr trade Journals like Impressions Magazine and Airbrush Trade Journals like Airbrush Action Magazine. Over the years along with stores in Shopping Malls West Coast Airbrush fielded traveling vending trailers and Booths at Large National and regional Sporting events, Fairs and Festivals. In 2013 I partnered with 4
WWW.AIRBRUSHDOJO.COM long time Freind and airbrushing Colleague Mark Rush to work towards expanding the amazingly Successful Walmart Based Big Airbrush chain of stores. During this expansion in 2015 I partnered with my now partner Karen Bellman and opened 3 Big Airbrush shops inside the busiest Walmart Stores in the United States located in Orlando / Kissimmee Florida just outside Walt Disney World and Universal Studios. These Walmart stores along with the Theme parks play host to the 77 Million tourists from around the globe that visit Orlando every year making it one of the 3 busiest tourist’s destinations on Earth. Not a Bad 60 Year History for a couple of Ol’ T-shirt Painters, Right? Tom and I have had a great Ride over the years with many great Artists and associates by our side helping us achieve our shared goals and dreams. We enjoy sharing these memories with all of you.
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