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"Tributes"

"The extension of one's relevance beyond significance, perceived through a journey to enrapture innate curiosity, also tempers fate & resolves truth." - BMM

"ScorpinStella" © Brad Michael Moore

Howard Rachofsky

My path, as a practicing artist has been long and winding. I easily acknowledge that a successful artist needs a support team - a family - either real, or accumulated. I'm at the top of my creative force & I am 71. I have done every kind of photography that can be done - my professional career began in 1970. I had a vision in the mid-1980's - when I was still mostly, a landscape artist. The vision was Abstract Art! Back then, I had the chance to know, Howard Rachofsky, in Dallas, Texas. This was back in the days when he owned a home in Preston Forest (North Dallas). My brother, Tully Weiss, installed the world's first FAA certified, Residential Laser Light System, to enhance the atmospherics of Howard's home, and contemporary art collection - much of which, already, was stored, or on loan to museums, and galleries around the world... Howard purchased a very nice commission from me. It wasn't his style [Landscapes], but he purchased it none-the-less. Howard also helped me with a very personal matter that he had no reason to get involved in - but Howard is just that kind of guy. He either saw something in me, or, maybe, he is just a very generous person to those surrounding him. What was most important, to me, was what Howard exposed me to - his Abstract Collection of 2 & 3-D art. For a period - Howard talked a lot about his art - the artists he collected (and the ones he didm't), and what it was about all of those works that got him so excited, or focused his POV, - unlike the Hedge Fund Business. The Stellas in Howard's Collection, were what most impressed me viserally, and in my gut & imagination! As I moved forward in my life - our relationship was severed, but those early abstract impressions became attached to me in a way that, eventually, allowed me to become an Abstract Artist myself! It took nearly 20 more years, before I felt I had finally unlocked the key to abstraction. In the meanwhile - I had to deal with an analog world - that was quickly becoming a digital world. It was the new Digital World that became my savior! Meanwhile, I left Dallas, and became a, 'Folk Digital Artist,' and live in rural isolation for the next 30+ years. Now, I'm ready to, again, greet the world that went on without me... My Digital Artifacts have also morphed into A.I. Renderings, and my world of Abstraction continues to grow. I have Howard Rachofsky to thank for planting the seed... While I still have no 'supporting' family, or artistic community, I have acculmulated 20 years of Digital Artifacts - my digital artform - out from which my new body of A.I. Iterations also take root, and here is where I stand... Wish me well, and I'll bid you blessings in return! Salutations!

- Brad Michael Moore

Edward Fritz Tribute

By Brad Michael Moore, Artist (formally of Dallas, TX USA - now living in the hard scrabble of Jack County, TX...)

I have been out of touch with my hometown for a long while. It was only through web browsing I came upon Andy Mahler’s most sincere tribute to Edward Fritz. Ned lived a grand and long life. I remember finding Ned Fritz already well defined in his life while I was just a youngster, unafraid to introduce myself to anyone. I read about Ned in the Dallas Morning Newspaper, back in the early 1970’s. The article was about a fuss, locally, over Ned’s back yard. Ned was a sprightly 56 years of age, and I was a 21-year-old professional photographer - native to Dallas. When we met - we became fast accomplices. I had a eye for natural composition, and Ned was a natural at being a mentor, and teacher. Edward Fritz was always brimming with enthusiasm, and never took defeat as an obstacle - but rather, as just another bump in the road of opportunities one passed to get where one needed to go.

Ned was a light-framed fellow, brilliant and curious, who could size up his competition faster than they could tie their shoelaces. When I first read about Ned, I already had and idea about his steadfastness. I knew some considered him a liberal lawyer just making a fuss over, “cutting the grass.” The issue grew far deeper than that. Ned argued that he would never alter the landscape of his (and wife Genie’s) Homestead from it's "Natural State," just to blend in better with the other neighbor’s yards – long ago raped and manicured to suit their own self images. To look at their yards was to look at air. To look at Ned’s yard was to look at God. Ned allowed the environmental flora growing upon the land of his homestead to do as nature would choose to do… Ned was just a Ward - keeping an eye on all things natural. The Fritz’s home was backed up to a creek in a greenbelt area running just of south of Northwest Highway, near Midway Road - smack-dab in the middle of Dallas, Texas.

Ned allowed my unannounced visit to his home one morning and introduced me to his wife, Genie, who was going off to play tennis. The first glimpse I noticed, coming into the house, were lots of glass windows in the back walls, and lots of organized stacks of newspapers, magazines, papers, and more papers on the floors around his desks, cabinets, and such ({*} today - all the information from all those stacks of paper data could be kept on a single keychain Flash Drive). At that time, I wanted to concentrate on improving my skills as a nature photographer, and I hoped Ned would have some suggestions. Ned told me he could not offer me much over the art of nature photography, but he could show me a lot about nature, and in that knowledge – I could benefit. In fact, as it turned out, Ned was always in need of photo ‘foot soldiers’ who could take leave of the big city on short notice, and didn’t mind sleeping under the stars in the great outdoors!

Ned would be spending a lot of time (in the next dozen or so years) traveling, and studying flora and fauna habitats in the Texas wilderness areas, and its National Parks. He knew volumes, but he wanted to better document (and change) a misguided and unnatural logging practice called, “Clearcutting,” and show how it adversely affected biodiversity and the future of our national treasures – the National Parks of America that contained manageable timber stock. Before I left Ned’s house, that day, I was already committed to being one of his ‘go-to guys’ for short-notice trips to the National Parks and wildlife areas in Texas for purposes of photo-documentation. Later, our travels spread out through the eastern sections of North America’s National Wildernesses. Ned already had a working plan – a call to action to protect our woods. His work had only begun.

As time went by, Ned and I sojourned throughout east and southeastern Texas, visiting public and private lands, holding unique natural habitats and damaged landscapes. I would sometimes complain to Ned, "You always call me to take the ‘worse’ pictures in nature,” meaning the ones depicting abuses to our national treasures – pubic lands covered with ruinations rained down upon them through government contracts given to private companies by our National Forest Supervisors – ‘Wards’ of our great national resources. Contracts were dealt at cut-rate prices to the paper and lumber industries – many using the worst practices of Clearcutting, and road building procedures, which were as bad as it gets when meaning to destroy natural habitats - preparing for their replacement with monocultured scapes – unfriendly to animals, flora diversity – and even water quality. So, I rarely ever photographed the good stuff – but instead, documented the horrors of terrible land management practices and the scars they left behind… “This is the important stuff people need to see,” Ned would always say. For that – there was no greater truth, or sensible counter-argument. Knowing this, “Truth,” was often my only comfort – during many a sultry mid-summer night’s resting under the stars (while being feasting upon by mosquitoes).

I loved making a positive mark upon the slow swing of progress - in saving our forests, and their wildlife and flora… I detested that it often times seemed such a painful endeavor though, requiring so much devolution and attention. I also took pleasure in the fortune of being that cog in the wheel - its veer rolled towards a potentially better future for generations to come – a future allowing new generations a chance to experience something as near to pristine as we have known. Though I was only in my twenties, I came to see that, “This Hard Work,” would reflect the true value of ours and many other like-minded people’s efforts, and it would be effort worthwhile (even if never-ending).

A few light moments… Once Ned and I were crossing a stream, and he stopped, as he was constantly prone to do, and pointed to a little whitish & pale green two-leaf sprout at a stream's edge and shouted, "Trout Lilly!" It seemed so small and insignificant – just another clue the wonder of Natural Biodiversity. Ned could see a grain of sand inside a needle – if he were to pass it. Another time I lagged behind Ned and walked (fell) into a sinkhole – landing still standing upright! I photographed the exit – just a bit out of reach, while I waited for Ned to notice me missing, back trace his steps, find me, and help me out. Later that day, Ned showed me a fern that was sensitive to the human touch - I touched it - it rolled up and folded over. After a while, it reopened! I touched it again - and this time it closed for the foreseeable future – no fooling it more than twice! There are so many treasures at our feet – Ned Fritz helped teach me that lesson, and it was but one of his gifts I still use everyday – so many a small treasure I have found under foot since!

I was very honored in the mid 1980’s when Ned asked me to help him illustrate his next book - to be titled, “Clearcutting: A Crime Against Nature,” published by Eakin Press. Ned had a friend, pilot Charles Johnson, who flew a single engine Cessna. It would be a great tool in our travels – to fly so close to the ground you could almost imagine awakening a sleepy Earth. With me in the backseat with my cameras, and Ned riding shotgun, Charles flew us all about the eastern United States. We stopped and visited every National Forest we could find, and met with, and often took shelter with fellow activists and other protectors of our nation’s natural heritages (that is how I met Andy and Linda Mahler). Starting from Texas, we headed to Florida, and then up the Eastern Seaboard to Washington D.C. - where we stopped for Ned to do some lobbying (I walked from the steps of Capitol Hill to Arlington Cemetery one day). Then we flew west from Maryland to Indiana - before headed back south and home with 20-something new notches in our wilderness belts. It was a nearly month-long journey.

I have been thinking of another great gift Ned left for me to muse over… When my friend passed away – I was the same age as he was - the first day we met. It inspires me to imagine over all that he accomplished - after many others would have begun considering their retirement! Ned’s life shows me proofs that there are still many more miles to go before I rest, and so many dreams yet to explore, and gifts to find and give away to others…

Monday, 2 AM, February 8, 2010

"Douglas E. Tomlinson, April, 1972" © Brad Michael Moore

A Tribute to Douglas E. Tomlinson

For those of us who grow up in the same neighborhood, or, if we moved, but we were still going to the same schools as our friends - the bonds are almost indelible that are created from those childhood friendships… Many that become life-long friendships - no matter how far flung our future circumstances may separate us!

The Texas International Pop Festival [partially produced by fellow-Dallasite, Angus Wynne], took place in the, “Summer of Love” - that was 1969!” I had a pivotal moment in my freshly-minted 15-year-old life! With a few of my best buddies, my older brothers, and some of their best buddies, we all made our way to this amazing, quintessential, coming of age event! Hendrix, Joplin, Santana, Led Zeppelin, Nazz, B.B. King, and so many of the day’s Rock Legends performed - creating both surreal circumstances, and happenstances, on that sunny Labor Day Weekend, in Justin, Texas USA… All together - those of us who participated - young, and old alike, were there to experience a common bonding! In such powder-keg times, the festival’s music, and the concert goers – all set aside our divisions over the Vietnam War, long hair, and dope-smoking, and for this one weekend - we forgot our differences… With on upwards of a quarter million people - there were no arrests during the whole event!

I bring this all up because - on one of those days, while just traversing through the crowds - I ran into my most favorite neighbor on my home block - Don Meredith (Quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys), who I had known since I was 15. One of Don’s friends, Perry Cloud, had the most professional-inspiring bag of cameras and lens I had ever been so close to! Perry even allowed me to peek through his 300-MM Telephoto Lens at the crowds and sound-stage. I had been using my grandmother’s old Argus Twin-Lens to take pictures since I was five, but at the festival - I only carried my Kodak Instamatic for the weekend; Perry Cloud’s photo-gear represented a whole new universe to my imagination… I will never forget the magnitude of personal growth blooming into my identity in that one weekend! It was such a wild period of my young life!!! As great as the Pop Festival was to attend, and share, with so many other human beings - what I really took away from that weekend was a new direction to focus my energies… I wanted to become a Professional Photographer! I had asked my mom and Step-father for a car earlier that year, and of course, they had balked! So when I approached them with a more reasonable request - to help me get a new 35-mm professional grade camera - they liked the magnitude of reduction in my compromise towards moderation! I think they also hunched that I had a talent, a creative eye, and that this was a possible investment I could make future use of, and I did…

Early on, I took my camera everywhere I went - either by myself, or with friends - my camera and I were inseparable! In those early days, I had to go to a local Camera store called Unicam, to get my films processed, and printed. Andy North, the store manager, liked me, and the scope of my work. So when I had processed print-orders sitting around - waiting to be collected - Andy would show my work to some of his customers. One of those was a professional photographer named; Douglas E. Tomlinson – who had a professional photographic partnership with another photographer named, Dave Rhea, in Dallas, Texas. Turns out they were on the hunt for a, ‘grunt,’ to assist them - mostly in their darkroom, but also as a Photographer’s Assistant. It was such a lucky break for me - it would accentuate the entire course of my future life!

Doug Tomlinson, grew up an, "Army Brat," but, at heart, Doug was a Fort Worth Native – where his mother and sister still lived. Doug had been a professional photographer almost since directly graduating from North Texas State University, (later renamed to the, “University of North Texas.” Doug became a great friend who assisted me, at the age of 17, in growing up, professionally -and moved me much more quickly towards my ambition’s aim. Where once was something I could hardly imagine – now, suddenly, I was well on the road to finding it out!

In those first six months - I was just like a sponge, soaking up a decade of Doug’s previous professional experience. This was college for me, and I was hungry for knowledge… First, the work was mostly in the darkroom - where I learned how to expose and process black & white prints and films... I’ll never forget the thrill I experienced when Doug offered me an opportunity to print a negative of my own [my favorite shot] of a girlfriend - one who dated me during that period while I was learning the important notions of composition, and framing a photograph most fastidiously. Pulling that first 16 by 20 inch photograph of, ‘Susan’, in her floppy leather hat - at the Turtle Creek Park, in the Park Cities of Dallas, Texas was a, “Singular Moment,” in my memory, and that printed image still hangs in my home 53 years later!

Doug was color blind, so he had gone as far as he could - in aspiring to learn and exercise the most intricate process of photographing (exposing, developing, and printing B&W films) using what is known as, (‘The Zone System,’) created by then living Photo-legend, Ansel Adams! Doug and I got to meet Ansel on a number of occasions in Dallas, Texas, through Dallas’s Premier Photography Gallery, Ben Beard’s, “The Afterimage.” Doug and I both collected signed works by Ansel Adams.

Ansel-Adams "Winter Sunrise"

Dave Rhea, Doug’s early partner (and my 1^st Roommate), fell in love with a lady whose family raised and trained Arabian Horses. Dave wanted to leave his partnership with Doug and get more involved in the horse business… Once again, I was blessed by circumstance! I had always been a fortunate human being for having the experience of growing up, in a loving and close relationship with my Great-grandmother, Donna Thompson. I always called her, Little Mama! Her ‘Funeral’ was the first most memorable and solemn occasion I attended - where I both fully comprehended the concept, and the meaning, of losing of a close loved-one… What I wasn't told by my mother, or grand-mother, was that Little Mama had left a gift for each of my brothers and I - which, when I turned 18, the three of us would simultaneously inherit. They were shares in Bristol Myers Stock - a Big Pharma stock to hold in those times. How long Little Mama had collected, and grown, her nest egg, I haven’t a clue. It is something my grandmother and I should have discussed at least once, in her life time - another 28 years, but how many things there are - I wished I had discussed with my Family Elders in their lifetimes - before I found myself being one of those Family Elders myself - with no more elders of my own…

So, with Doug and Dave’s partnership breaking up, and me, suddenly coming into a, 'Windfall' - I saw an opportunity! Although I had learned much in my 1^st 6 months of working with Doug & Dave - I realized, I still did not have the cred, or confidences of experience, to match my enthusiasm! However, with my penchant for the trade - even Doug had already told me how surprised he was at how much detail, and how quickly, I had accumulated a working knowledge from what he considered, ‘his own good habits!' Doug said he thought I was already giving 'Dave,' a run for the money - with my abilities for conceptualization… So, I knew Doug was pleased with my progress… I also knew Doug was becoming very concerned, and depressed, over the certain prospect of losing Dave as a partner... He was most concerned over the finances of trying to run a business by himself - alone.

Doug liked having a partner. This is when I made him my offer... For a full partnership, I would put up enough cash to move us into some new digs, buy some new equipment and accessories, and I would pay Doug a monthly stipend for the first six months - so we could just concentrate on the business relationships Doug already had honed, and Doug could spend the extra time raising my photographic competency with side-lessons, and photo-project challenges. Every day would be like final exams!

Things had been going along so swimmingly that - after the 1st five months of this working/apprenticing routine, Doug told me one day he could really see this all working out between us, and he wanted to help me, and us both, by building a fully functional Color Darkroom! I would then handle all the color work we got – while Doug would just concentrate, on View Camera Jobs, and black & white reproduction needs of the business. In the early 1970’s – Black and White photo work was still the mainstay of our business, and we had lots of public-relation jobs, and architectural work, and now we had defined how we would approach this effort together! Doug knew how to do everything but actually judge subtle differences in color rendering - but, that was my cup of tea!

"Brad Michael Moore in 1971, at the Studio"

By the sixth month of our partnership, and my, 'first year,' in the business - we were taking no prisoners! I was handling the color jobs, and Douglas did the B&W - and when both were required - we worked the big jobs together! Before our first year as partners had passed - we had already seen other start-ups, in our concentration, rise and fall so quickly... My project funding really allowed us the opportunity to mature - getting through the opening, 'growing pains,' without the worries of covering expenses, & general bills… Before long, our business was doing so well – we hired a secretary, Mary Blakemore, for doing the billings, working the phones and such... Mary (A solemn Elvis Fan) was so excited when we purchased, [for her], an IBM Selectric II Self-correcting Electric Typewriter! This was 1972 - the first electronic calculators were coming along - but this, "Selectric II," was the closest thing yet to a computer - it had a small bit of memory (8 Bytes) - enough to where if you made a mistake - it could erase [with white tape] nearly a whole sentence, or more in characters, and retype them with the corrections you added! After we had Mary settled in, we next hired a young sales person, Carol Baker, who really found her groove, representing us, and loved our commission-setup! Carol brought us so much new business - we finally had to begin turning down jobs that we once - could not refuse... Now we were specializing, and much more selective over our clientele! Our, 'Hourly Rates,' kept rising, and we hired our first, 'grunt' - someone to do what I was once hired to do for Doug & Dave! My Professional Photography Life had really come around 'full-circle' for me. Times were good!

When I first approached Douglas over partnering up with me, I said, "If we go the distance - we should set a future date to revisit our progress as partners." If we set out and accomplished our original goals we settled upon - perhaps there should be a, 'future point,' to set new goals to conquer! We both agreed, 'Three Years,' would be a good period of time to run – before making such a reassessment. When that time [3 years] did finally come around - both Doug and I could honestly admit - we had accomplished more than we ever imagined we could… I think, now, we were both ready to dive into this world as individuals! Doug had more confidence than I had ever known him to have previously, and I was a free spirit… While we ,likely, should have stayed together - as a result of our 3-year commitment towards reassessment - we found ourselves wanting to go separate directions! Success wasn't everything... We were both still growing as individuals! We both wanted to try out individual careers! Having shook each other's hands, in appreciation over how we each has always stuck to our agreements - staying the course, together, and finding true success! Now, we found ourselves both ready to grow on in each, our own separate ways... The hard part - was then having to call for a, "Group Meeting," and then telling our employees we were going to close down the shop... However we offered to, 'stick together,' long enough to see that everyone got a new job that wanted one. They took us up on that promise, and, so, during the year of 1974, Douglas E. Tomlinson, and I, parted ways… After four years of working together - Doug’s time with me was my, "College Diploma," but, (I felt) it was more a’kin to a Doctorate!

What made me most proud of Doug (after we made our forward paths into the world) was Doug taking his love of the, "View Camera," and continuing to couple it with it's photo-equivalent - Architecture! Doug took hundreds of pictures of Dallas Architecture, commercial and residential! It was a passion I got to take part in while we were partners! Whenever were on location, for a downtown event, or, just traveling through the city to some other location - Doug was always looking out for some unique form of architecture... It might be an old movie theater, a home on Dallas's famed Swiss Avenue, or some of the unsung old buildings Dallas still had standing - besides the old downtown government building, 'Icons.' After our split, Doug stuck to this, his great passion - eventually, publishing a book, "Dallas From the Ground Up! - where Doug simultaneously Exhibited his portfolio of chosen works at the old, "Dallas Museum of Fine Arts {DMFA}," while it was still located at Fair Park… It later moved to it's present downtown location, and trimmed it's name to, {DMA} - Dallas Museum of Art… That project began with help from his friend, Ann Courtin Williams, who suggested, David Dillon, who wrote for, and worked with the Dallas Morning News, to collaborate his text into Doug's portfolio - to complete his book including a story over Dallas Architecture - 1936-1986. Dillon would later pen over Doug's art, "...I was astonished… by the beauty and sensitivity of his [Doug's] photographs… technically flawless, deeply felt and filled with quiet optimism, just like the artist who took them."

Even after our commercial business split, Doug and I would still always come back together - for one annual event that had become a tradition between us - with Dr. Kenneth Cooper (the Founder of Aerobics). Every year, either the last week of October, or the first week of November - depending on the date of the New York City Marathon {won by an American, we would gather at Dr. Cooper’s North Dallas Aerobic Center for a corporate event. The annual 'timed-run,' was titled the, "The Tyler Cup," - a running event, whose participants were leaders in the corporate community. It was originally Funded by Tyler Corporation - a Texas Corporation. Dr. Cooper was working to bring better health to Corporate America, and in this, "Run Event," that was held annually - each participating company would enter a team of four runners. Teams didn't compete against each other - they each competed against themselves as individuals, and their best past - times... Still, the teams with the highest average combined-time would win a small recognition when, 'Special Awards,' were given out - at the end of each race's luncheon. There, the day's main speaker (the likes of a Tom Landry, or Roger Staubach) would offer a lecture of, "Business & Personal Wisdom," to the invited guests - which also included Douglas and I! We participated in shooting this event for 32 years! After the "Run Event" - at the North Dallas Aerobic Center - the Luncheon was usually held at the Dallas Brook Hollow Country Club. I got to meet some great people there that I always looked up to - many as outstanding pillars in my own community, and others – like 2-Time Olympic Gold Metal Winner in the Marathon Event, Frank Shorter!

We continued to do the, 'Tyler Cup,' - even after Doug had become ill with Melanoma Cancer, in late 2000. On our final year, 2005, it was almost all Doug could do - but sit in a chair, near the, 'Finish Line,' and direct the activity, we hired an extra photographer, along with our usual assistants, for those last several years - to assist us in carrying the bulk of Doug’s physical load. I had never known Doug to be a complainer... He held a stride in his life, and he always kept on to it - for as for as long as he possibly could...

Doug and his wife (Jan) called me over to their home, one summer morning, in North Dallas, June 22nd. By the end of that day - I was hand-carrying Douglas, light as a feather in my arms. I walked, from Doug & Jan's car, into the Arlington Hospital - making this, Doug's last visit to a caregiver's ward in his life… Doug's last request, "No Catheter this time, please..." Douglas E. Tomlinson passed away 24 hours later, in the year of 2006.

Doug was kind of like a big brother to me, although not familial - in the purest sense, but always completely honest in all ways (perhaps I was the little Douglas had never had! I held Douglas in the highest esteem, and Doug was a, "Great Friend," to me. Douglas never let me down, and I mirrored ‘the same’ towards Doug, 'like-wise.' I think, during our whole relationship - we only even had but one misunderstanding, and even that was something we ended up laughing over, in only a few minutes time - before going out for a sandwich and a beer.

Douglas E. Tomlinson was a true connoisseur of best habits, ceaselessly working his techniques - until they were annealed to a perfection that reached his highest standards! As a partner in business - with my being a full decade younger than Doug, and as impressionable, and reflective, as I am in my own personality - I could have not fallen into better company, and stewardship, than that which Douglas E. Tomlinson, truly, and so naturally, provided to me…

fin