A Brief Personal History

I was born into a family of artists. My father was a regionally well known sculptor in Detroit, and my mother was a painter and illustrator. From as early as I can remember, I've enjoyed making art in one form or another.

In 1964 I received a full scholarship to Pratt Institute. Although majoring in painting and graphic arts, I began to take photography seriously as an art form. People were my subject of choice and I took thousands of street portraits. In 1972 I received an MFA in printmaking and soon after faced the economic reality of making a living. I worked for a number of ad agencies and corporations in New York City as a graphic designer and illustrator, but kept photography as my personal 'art'.

In the early 80's I moved to New Hampshire and continued making black and white street portraits, but I didn't feel the same juice I had experienced in New York. To make a living, I worked as a free-lance designer for non-profit organizations and museums. However, one of my most enjoyable early jobs was drawing cartoons for Richard Lederer's weekly column on puns and language oddities in the Concord Monitor.

I bought a 35mm camera with a macro lens and began to explore color nature photography. I loved creating sensual, aesthetically pleasing images, but I gradually realized that I was primarily interested in more emotionally evocative subject matter. The cartoonist in me wanted to find a way to express himself in the medium that I Ioved most.

Some time during this period I discovered that flea markets were a great source of photographic subject matter. In one small area I could fiind the most elegant still-lifes, or the funniest off-the-wall kitch. It wasn't long before I became addicted. At almost any good flea market or even a substantial yard sale, I would flip into creative observer mode - and experince the 'high' of discovering some funny or amazing visual oddites.

Over the next 15 years I photographed flea markets and yard sales wherever I traveled and to date I have produced several thousand images.

Fleanotes

Fleanotes evolved out of necessity. My wife, and now business partner, Debbie, was simply not going to another flea market with me unless I did something 'practical' (and, of course creative) with all of these great images. And so Fleanotes was born. We now have an in-house production studio in Asheville, North Carolina, and Debbie is not only the finder / editor of our quotations, but has taken on the role of marketing and sales director as well.

In case you were wondering, Masala, which means 'spicy mix', is the name of our company and Fleanotes is the first of several categories of greeting cards and related products we will be offering.

Cheers!
Debbie & Todd