Michael Kronenberg, Earl Shores, and Roddy Garcia at the ADA Gallery in Richmond, VA. Opening night of the Electric Football Art Show. The exhibit will run until Sept. 10.

It was all very heady stuff, and nothing like we’d ever experienced in all of our years in electric football. There the three of us were, rushing through the streets of Richmond trying to make it back to the ADA Gallery in time for the 7:00 pm opening of the Electric Football Art Show. We were rushing back from a book signing that had just taken place at nearby Chop Suey Books.

We were still trying to take the moment in – an art show featuring Electric Football. In addition to thousands of amazingly painted Electric Football players, there were old games and ads all laid out like pieces of art. It was the vision of Chris Bopst that brought this all to fruition. He had put in long hours and a mammoth effort to make the event happen.

But the most stunning part was seeing what Chris had done with The Unforgettable Buzz: he had blown the cover up to poster size, and displayed it prominently on a main wall of the exhibit. And surrounding the cover were other pages from our book, all in an expanded scale that we never dreamed of. For almost a year we’d been thinking in terms of 6” x 9” — it was hard to think of our book in any other way. Yet there were our pages in a much larger format…and it was absolutely staggering to see them that way.

For Roddy and I, it was another point to stop and marvel at Michael’s work. How incredibly fortunate we were to have him as our designer. Another point to marvel at was that this was the first time The Buzz team had ever been all together. We’d spent a year working on the book, yet none of that work had been done “live” or face-to-face. Now we’d been together for just a few hours, yet there was no question that we were a “team.”

The gallery was incredibly busy throughout the show. Watching the people stream through the doors is something we will long remember.  What we will also remember is a late and enjoyable evening that ended over cigars and a discussion of our next Electric Football project — a color photo book in 2014.

So thanks Chris, and thanks Richmond. Till next time!!!

Earl

The Electric Football Art Show runs until September 10. Be sure to check it out!!