and me. I learned watercolors and oils and all that stuff during third and fourth grade after school.” In the fifth grade, he sold his first painting. “I think it was for something like five bucks at a garage sale. I was getting a quarter a week allowance, so five bucks was huge. I bought a G.I. Joe model airplane and I thought this was the way to go, man.” PAINTING T-SHIRTS ON THE BEACH Flash forward to 1977. A friend sent 20-year-old Mickey to meet the owner of a t-shirt shop on the beach in Florida. “I told him I wasn’t an airbrush artist, but that I was an artist. He put me in the back of his shop and I practiced for three days. Everybody there was painting little beach scenes, sticking up a sun, some palm trees, lines for seagulls, and putting people’s names on them. Heck, I never paid any attention to that stuff. Instead, trying to figure out how the airbrush works, I painted a picture of a knight on a chariot with skis and polar bears pulling him through the snow.” The owner returned on the third day, looked at Mickey’s work and was shocked at the originality. He put Mickey in the front window the next day and told
A N N I V E R S A R Y
GRAIN CONDITIONING
Two panels painted by Mickey Harris on “The Weapon,” Mark Ulmer’s championship tractor from the Outlaw tractor pulling circuit.
him to “Keep doing what you’re doing and I’ll give you 100 percent of the money you make.” According to Mickey, “He put me in the front window like a trained monkey as an attraction because no one had seen airbrush work like that back in those days. Working in the front window, there were times
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MADE IN THE USA TSG C IN C .CO M • 7 1 2.3 3 6 .019 9
May 2022 | www.agemedia.pub | The Farming Families Magazine
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