When you learn to sail in the 40s, start sailboat racing in the 50’s, win regional trophies in the 60’s, win national trophies in the 70’s, cruise from New England to the Abacos in the 90’s, then add 12 years — ’01 to ’13 — cruising northwest Canadian straits and the Pacific, you can paint sailboats from your memory.
You also need to earn enough money to afford those ever-increasing waterlines:
Cub reporter, 40’s. Oilfield worker, 50’s. Television station manager, 60’s.
Radio, TV, Journalism professor, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s.
While teaching myself to paint watercolors amid the ice and snow of Ekaterinberg, Russia, ’95-’96, Ural State University awarded an honorary degree to add to my ’72 Ph.D from Chapel Hill.
Retired from University of North Carolina and moved to Cape George, Olympic Peninsula in 2001. Moved to Heath in March, this year.
Member, American Society of Marine Artists, since 1997.
Professor Emeritus A. Richard Elam, ph.d