 Brian was born on January 1, 1970
and raised in a small northwest-central Ohio town where he and his family
still
reside. He attended Catholic school for grades K-8 and then
switched to public school for 9 - 12. In school, he
received numerous art awards from grade school through high
school.
While still in
high school, he enlisted in the Armed Services and went
through his basic training during the summer of 1987, between
his junior and senior years in high school. Brian graduated from high school in 1988 as an art and
business major and spent several years serving in the U.S. Army
Quartermaster Corp. Some of the military bases he was assigned to
were Fort Dix New Jersey, Fort Lee Virginia and Fort Sill
Oklahoma.
Brian married young right out of high school in
February 1989. The marriage produced one daughter but lasted only two
years. He spent the next few years working odd jobs, until in 1993
he met the love of his life, Amanda. They married in 1995 at a
little log cabin chapel in Gatlinburg, TN in the Great Smokey Mountains.
They had three more children, a girl born in 1996, and two boys born in
1998 and 1999.
In 1999, after nearly 5 years traveling 160 miles round
trip per day to work, he took a
job closer to home working at a local tractor-trailer axle
manufacturing facility. On September 18, 2001, the company
announced they were closing their doors and in November 2001 they moved their operation to Mexico. Having received trade
readjustment assistance, he returned to school in the spring of 2002
for a career in
computers. Upon completing his training in 2003, Brian was unable to
find work in this field, so he chose to work as a nursing aid in a local
nursing home to help pay the bills. While here, he discovered that
he was a natural at caring for other people. It was here, with the
encouragement of his supervisors and co-workers that a decision was made
to pursue a career in nursing. This is where he also began to dabble
with painting genie bottles.
Brian had always been fascinated and
captivated by that little purple bottle from I Dream of Jeannie.
At the age of 6 he had his first encounter with a "Jeannie bottle".
He still remembers the encounter vividly after nearly 30 years.
Thus began a quest to find his own bottle. Flea markets, craft
shows, garage sales, county fairs and festivals ... Brian went to them
all heading straight for where ever the glass section was. In
2003, after having signed up for an eBay account, he tried to think of
something he'd always wanted, but was never able to find, and so he
began his search. BINGO, within seconds he was staring at a list
of bottles he never thought he would find. He bought one, and
waited on pins and needles for it to arrive. After two weeks of
finally having a bottle, now it was time to get a painted one.
After checking out the prices for painted bottles, all ranging from $300
- $600, he decided that with the help of a painting guide and some
internet research, he could paint one himself ... an so he did.
This started his obsession. The first bottle was horrible compared
to what they look like now, but Brian never gave up on perfecting his
techniques and his artistry. Constantly striving to capture the
beauty and mystique of that purple bottle on TV.
In March of 2004, Brian took the plunge by attending nursing school. Using his bottle painting
talents to help fund his education and support his family, he began
training to become a Licensed Practical Nurse. During this time,
he perfected his painting skills, studying photographs, watching episode
after episode of I Dream of Jeannie, trying more and more to bring his
bottles closer and closer to that elusive bottle on television.
In June of 2005 he graduated from nursing school
and on November 15, 2005 he finally sat for his state board nursing exam
and he passed! Brian is now a fully licensed nurse and gainfully
employed taking care of elderly residents of a local nursing facility.
He now intends to return to school to pursue his RN, and of course,
continue to develop his artistry and bring top quality hand painted
bottles at reasonable prices.
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Here
is a photograph of me with Barbara Eden after seeing her
perform in the Love Letters play at the New Jersey
Performing Arts Center on May 13t, 2007.