Patty and I have been doing art shows for almost 12 years now, wow, the time really flies!   Over the years we’ve had some really great stories that people have told us about our artwork and interesting things that have happened to us while traveling the art show circuit.  We like to share a few of those stories on this page.  If you have an interesting story to share about us or our artwork, please email it to us at albinarts@gmail.com and we’ll add them to this page.
The Firemen that saved the artwork! Mary lives in the old part of  Louisville, Ky. where the houses were built in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.   It’s an immaculate old three story house with wood staircases, 11 working fireplaces and art covering every wall.  She woke up one evening to the smell of smoke and found the light fixture in the master bathroom was shorting out and on fire.  She called the fire dept. and they came over quickly to put out the fire.  It just so happened that a piece of artwork that she had purchased from us was hanging over her tub.  She says she likes to lay in the tub and gaze into our art, it relaxes her.  As the firemen were spraying down the fire and gouging out the wall to get at the fire behind the wall, one of them noticed the original Albin hanging next to the tub.  He quickly took the piece off the wall, put it under his big fireman coat and took it to another room in the house.  Once Mary was allowed to come back into her house the fireman told her about the piece of artwork he had saved for her.  Saying “it looked like something special that she would not want to get damaged.”  In a house full of art, our piece of artwork was the only piece that was taken off  the wall and saved by the firemen!   All of our work has a brown paper backing on the back to keep dust out.  Mary showed me the piece the fireman saved and you could see the black, sooty hand/finger prints on the back of the paper backing.  I offered to change the paper backing for her but she said no, this was her souvenir from the fire in her home and how the firemen were thoughtful enough to save the piece from getting damaged.   The piece the firemen saved is called Morning Trail and it’s truly irreplaceable and priceless.  We have lost the negative that produced the photograph for the center of this piece.  Morning Trail was by far our most popular selling piece of all time.  There are no more photographs available in any size.
Our dinner at a barbque restaurant in Georgia. Patty and I participate in an art show in Stone Mountain Park called the Yellow Daisy Festival.  One year a gentleman came in admiring our work, we spoke with him for a few minutes and he mentioned he owned a barbque restaurant.  Patty and I both love barbque and asked him where the restaurant was.  It just so happens the restaurant was close to the show and we made a deal for him to purchase a piece, we took a few dollars off the price and we could eat that night at the restaurant for free.  We even agreed to deliver the piece to the restaurant when we came that night.   After the show, Patty and I arrived at to eat our barbque dinner with the picture he wanted to purchase.  When we came into the restaurant, a couple was sitting at one of the tables and the woman came over to Patty and I and started asking about the picture we were bringing in.  She said she had been to the show that day and fell in love with our work and was trying to describe what we do to her husband.  She had drawn on a napkin in an attempt to illustrate what we do to show him.  I asked if she would show us the napkin and she brought it over to the table.  There, all drawn out on one of the barbque restaurant paper napkins was a picture of a flower the continued onto the frame.  She went on and on about how much she loved our work.  I handed one of our cards to the husband and suggested one of our flower pictures for their next anniversary presents.