Books:

Discovered! 505
Odd Enterprises

Hidden Dollars

How to Make
Money at Home

Small Business
of Your Own

You Can Own
a Business

Among its other services, the Lighthouse offers pre-school training for children, music instruction of all types, aptitude testing and vocational guidance, and reorientation for the newly blinded. Included in the latter part of the program is the handicraft work calculated to give practice in new skills and to restore self-confidence. It is in this department, where recently blinded men work at carpentry and other crafts that Marcone supervises, patiently teaching inexperienced fingers to "see" and fumbling hands to become deft.

Once at home, with his young wife, who is one of the most attractive of the Lighthouse girls, Marcone is free to concentrate on his hobby—a combination he developed himself of pyrography and painting.

PYROGRAPHY—derived from the Greek word for fire, the same stem used in pyrotechnics, or fireworks—is pure and simply old-fashioned wood burning. This quite common technique Marcone learned one season when he attended Camp Lighthouse, the summer camp maintained by the New York Association for the Blind for the benefit of children and young people blind or with very limited vision.

Popular several decades ago, particularly with young ladies, examples of wood burning adorned many a Victorian parlor. Now it has been relegated chiefly to small fry who are entertained for a few days with the gift of a wood burning set, but soon discard it for more active pastimes. Rather than the old type of stylus which had to be heated on a stove and then reheated after a small amount of work was done, Marcone uses an electrically heated tool which, like electric irons, has replaced those heated on the stove. He still uses his original electric stylus, and all the attention it needs is an occasional sharpening with a file. With this modern equipment, Marcone was taught elementary work. Patterns to be burned were pencilled on the wood surface and outlined heavily with the heated tool. Details were worked in more lightly afterward. Naturally, the amount of pressure applied, and the speed with which the work is done regulate the width and depth of the line burned. One of the first pieces Marcone made was a small plaque with a heavy buffalo—a souvenir which he still owns, but regards somewhat tolerantly as very amateurish.

But wood burning alone was not enough to satisfy Marcone. After returning from camp, he decided that his plaques were too old-fashioned and conventional for his taste, and not at all outstanding. He wanted to do something more original, so he tried coloring his finished designs with crayons. Whereas the results were not entirely successful, he made a number of plaques in this way. Then he tried using water colors and stuck to them for five years. During that time he did a great deal of experimenting. He had done all his first work on maple plaques with bevelled edges; now he tried different woods. After using all sorts of designs, Marcone decided that he would specialize in birds. They were the most fascinating—a whole hobby in themselves—and he had finally hit upon a technique that suited him. It is the one he uses now—wood burning on mahogany veneer, painted with oils, and framed with a mat under glass.

A GREAT deal of preliminary work and study go into Marcone's pictures. First of all, he has to decide what birds he wants to reproduce, and then find suitable pictures in his collection of bird photographs and drawings. Having selected the views of the birds he will need, he composes a design in his mind, using either one or several birds, and accessories such as flowers, foliage, nests, twigs, or butterflies.

When the picture is successfully planned, Marcone traces around the birds and transfers them to their correct places on the mahogany veneer by the use of carbon paper. Only then does he start the heavy outline with his wood burning tool. For one with scant vision, this and the subsequent addition of details, such, as feathers, is an exacting task. As Marcone points out, it is particularly ticklish work, because in pyrography there is no such thing as an erasure. Once a mark is made, it is there to stay, and the only way an error can sometimes be corrected is to turn it into a mark not originally called for in the design. On the branch of a tree or the body of a bird, this is not too difficult, but in some places it can be disastrous. Like the human nose, an inch on the end of a bird's bill is exceptionally long! Even with the carbon lines, Marcone follows his copy very carefully when working with the wood burning tool, for the features and feathers of each bird differ, and the accuracy of the painting is determined by the underlying etching. When it comes to foliage and flowers, Marcone puts them in freehand with his wood burning tool.

When Marcone finally finishes the burning, he gives the entire picture a single coat of clear white shellac and allows it to dry thoroughly. Then the painting starts. He uses either a good quality of oil paint, or a new product known simply as "synthetic paint," which he buys at a neighborhood artist's supply store. Using his oils in the conventional way, thinning with turpentine when necessary, working carefully with small brushes and following his copy in every detail, he paints the birds and butterflies, blossoms and leaves. The entire background he leaves natural. It takes several sittings to complete even the smallest picture, for the paint must dry, and the detailed work can easily become tiring and tedious. After all the painting is done and dry, Marcone goes over the painted portions of the picture with varnish. This brings out the brilliance of his coloring and gives it a permanent finish. The last step is to fit the picture with a light mat and a matching mahogany frame, which can be done at any framing store.

In working with the beautifully grained mahogany, Marcone tries to adapt his pictures to the marking of the wood, taking advantage of the subtlety of the natural coloring. Some grains seem to call for large, splotchy work, while others are better adapted to delicate patterns and craftsmanship. In fact, it was the wood itself that decided Marcone on his bird specialty. Previously, he had explored the field of sailing ships, burning and painting many different types. But they seemed to need backgrounds of blue sky and billowy white clouds. By the time Marcone was finished, most of the wood was obscured by paint, and he did not like that. It was then he definitely decided in favor of limiting his work to birds, which show up especially well against the natural wood background.

SINCE HE began creating his unusual bird pictures, Marcone has sold more than a hundred. For his first sales, he received as little as $1. Now, with his improved techniques, $25 is average. A number of pictures have sold through the craft shop at the Lighthouse, while others have gone to friends and friends of friends who have seen Marcone's work. He is now finishing a pair of painted pyrographs of flickers, twelve by fifteen inches, to be sent to England.

Marcone depicts all kinds of birds, and his finished products vary all the way from a few inches square to one which was almost a yard long and included a number of birds. Most difficult of all for Marcone to do were the tiny, life-sized humming birds with their delicate, almost scale-like jeweled feathers and needle-like bills. His accuracy and attention to detail are attested to by the fact that his pictures have been exhibited at the headquarters of the National Audubon Society, where only the finest work on birds is approved and displayed. This is fitting tribute to the exquisite work of one who is nearly blind. Further interest was aroused in Teddy and his pyrographic art when he appeared at an Allied Artists benefit and an associated television program.

Marcone has never concentrated on marketing his bird pictures. He has never advertised or sold by mail, and the only shop through which he has sold is the one at the Lighthouse. The lovely, light, newly expanded craftshop there is a mecca for shoppers interested in unusual craft work as well as philanthropy, and each time Marcone displays his pictures there he receives more orders than he really wants. The publicity from the television program and the Audubon show was wonderful for business, but the work is time consuming and painstaking, and Marcone's sight must be carefully conserved. So it is that he has not advertised or sought publicity in an organized or planned way.