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Botanical Rain: the enduring Endico image

 




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Updated July 27, 2017 | By Bob Fugett ©2017

Addendum

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At the time of writing Botanical Rain, the Delaware and Hudson Canvas is the only regional (upper east coast United States) print publication which is correctly and fully dedicated to the arts community.

Excellent content, excellent writing, and excellent commitment to the arts.

Here is a screengrab of Botanical Rain on the cover of the Canvas, taken from the online edition:


Botanical Rain in its natural habitat
on the cover of a major print publication, May, 2017

 

Below are a three (3) more Endico watercolors from the Botanical Rain Series (all three are plein airs from memory); for context Botanical Rain is repeated below them, and a related Bob Fugett original is found at the end:
 


#1738 - Mary Endico ©1980
(7" x 13" original watercolor)

 


#3297 - Mary Endico ©1979
(14" x 16" original watercolor)

 


#2006 - Mary Endico ©1979
(15" x 22" original watercolor)

 


Botanical Rain - Mary Endico ©1979
(9" x 10" original watercolor)

 


 


Art v Science (you little monkey) - Bob Fugett ©2017
(8.5" x 14" crayon and printed text)

Immediately above is a conceptual piece by Bob Fugett which is closely related to the Botanical Rain book; the text reads:

Those who believe art is not a science, do not know art.
Those who believe science is not an art, do not know science.

— Bob Fugett    

x = the arts
y = activism

x = y = demand arts programs remain in your schools!
 


Gam and the Cousins

Art Elwood, owner of the Dixie Drive-in, London, Ohio (where I worked summers and breaks during college), once told me, "Bob, a wife can make or break you. Choose carefully."

Early Sugar Loaf was as much a story of couples as anything else, and teamwork was the order of the day; businesses where two were working together always survived much longer than solo performances.

Katherine "Gam" Endico held up her end of the bargain, not only for her husband Felix but for Endico watercolors.

In the early years of the Endico watercolor studio, Gam often brought her friends on day trips from Westchester to Sugar Loaf, and they all loved to shop in all the businesses.

Their kind support kept Mary and Sugar Loaf going while both were getting on their feet.

In fact, Gam was so closely partnered with Felix, an apocryphal tale in the Endico family states that Mary Endico was born as a trade for a very large diamond.

Felix had three daughters, but they were not going to carry the Endico name forward (in the traditional way), so he bargained with his wife Katherine to have just one more child in the hopes of a male.

Therefore, Mary was supposed to be a boy.

She still wears the diamond passed down to her.

Whether or not the trade was true, I knew how important it would be for Felix to have his name carried forward, so after our marriage I suggested it would be best for Mary to continue using her maiden name professionally.

Besides, we already had four years of promotional materials under our belt using her Endico name, plus the graphic and linguistic possibilities of Endico far outweighed the potential of Fugett.

These days, Mary uses Endico when things are going great; but, whenever she is causing trouble, she always defaults to her fallback legal name of Fugett.

Like any great idea, however, there are always unintended consequences: in this case I have grown to realize that what seemed like an easy boost for the Endico name has now grown into a responsibility.

I feel obligated to some very good people that I not screw up the name.

Most prominently are the two cousins, Cousin Billy and Cousin Felix, so I must mention them here.

Cousin Billy was working with the brothers (Felix, William, and Michael) in the potato factory when he realized they were never going to make him a full partner.

With typical Endico brains and bravado Billy said something like, "Screw that!" and set off on his own.

And now, Ace Endico is a company that has grown to eclipse the old potato factory, and when Mary and I see one of the almost ubiquitous Ace Endico trucks we always feel like running up to it and asking, "How's Billy doing?"

Of course, we never do it because we know if we ever did, the driver would not have a clue who we were or what we were talking about.

Billy also bought the first major Endico watercolor that Mary sold.

It was a cityscape he bought off a stud between insulation in our first gallery in Scott's Meadow, before the walls had sheetrock.

The price of the painting was $65.00 which at the time was a king's ransom and let us know things are possible.

Some day I hope Billy gets to slip his business card into my breast pocket for one final farewell.

As for the other cousin, Cousin Felix, he is the one I first spoke with at Grandma Josie's 80th birthday party, held in one of those famous, expensive, tiny, intimate, excellent, out-of-the-way, Italian family restaurants in the Bronx.

Felix was a musician, and I was a musician, so they sat us together, and we spent the night talking amongst ourselves.

I soon realized Felix was a real deal musician, so I was not surprised when he proved it over a lifetime of spectacular performances leading his band (Felix and the Cats) which has preserved the legacy of the big band swing era to this day.

When I see Google returns for either of the cousins topping those of Mary, it is the only time I ever smile and let the Internet be as it should.

Like I said, I feel greatly indebted, and Gam and the cousins are just a few.


Post Script

Two words were coined during the writing of Botanical Rain:

misehrty - a person or group's hatred of social classes other than their own, both upwardly and downwardly

etymology of misehrty: First attested to in Botanical Rain by Bob Fugett in 2017; he required a stronger term for hatred of other classes in both directions, upwardly and downwardly, the word prefix comes from the Greek prefix 'mis-' meaning hatred (as in misogyny - hatred of women, misandry - hatred of men, miseldry - hatred of the aged; the root of the word is a shortened form of heritage, wherein the letters 'he' are transposed to 'eh' in order to avoid spelling it as 'misherty' which invites pronunciation with a soft 'sh' in English.

miselderly - hatred of the aged

etymology of miseldry: First attested to in Botanical Rain by Bob Fugett in 2017; the word prefix comes from the Greek prefix 'mis-' meaning hatred, and the root is the English word 'elderly'

 



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