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McGuire Studios

McGuire Studios started officially in 1965 in Lopez in a building on Main Street. It was located about 100 feet or so to the right of the building on the right edge of the above photo.  I believe that was McCarthy's store at this time, and would later be enlarged and become McGee's hotel.   My first actual paid wedding was in 1959 while still in high school, and have been shooting all sorts of subjects ever since.

First, I better explain the above photo.  This originally is a circa 1904 old 5 x 8 inch black and white photo owned by Doc Shoemaker in Dushore.  He had it copied and a roughly 3 feet by 4 feet enlargement made and had it hung on one side of the Sullivan Review van in our 1976 Lopez Centennial Parade.  It then waited around the Sully for a year when I purchased it from Doc.  It sat at my house for a year or so until I got up enough nerve to start painting it.  I thought it would be really great to see a colored photo of 1904 Lopez.  Well, after many boxes of Q-tips, tooth picks, cotton balls and more than 228 hours of oil painting, I just got burned out and it sat for 23 or so years.  Now it is out of moth balls, and here you see it. It is also on display in the current new studio building in Lopez.  I still have some work to do on it, but have to get up more nerve.  It is a very tiring and tedious type of process and you have to be in the mood.

As I mentioned above, I started McGuire Studios in 1965 in a building that once was owned by William and Becky Johnson.  William had a barbershop there and also took photos of Lopez and had them made into post cards.  Becky sold them and candy and other little items there in the front room of the building.  When I bought the building, I had the front room as a hobby and gift shop and sold cameras, film, photo equipment and other gift and souvenir type items.  I had a studio in the back room and one on the second floor.  Because business could not support large quantity purchases of film and other merchandise,  I got rid of the store type sales and enlarged the front room and used it for a studio.  That made the upstairs studio used less and less.  I then built a quarter mile scale slot car drag strip up there and many local youngsters enjoyed a lot of hours of fun building and racing their cars against each other and the clock.  I wish I had taken some photos of the strip and some of the action as all was destroyed in the 1982 fire.

More to come later: