Attention Military Veterans!

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Veterans and Families,


By now everyone who is a Veteran from Baytown TX or surrounding TX area should know of the man called Ken the Dauber who is painting

Texas KIA's from Iraq and Afghanistan plus he has painted other Hero's from other wars...

On Friday Sept. 30th from 10AM to 5 PM and on Oct 1st from 10AM til 5 PM on Texas Ave across from old Brunson theater Ken the Dauber will have his Grand Opening of his KIA Hero Studio and he is needing help making this event a historic thing for Baytown TX...

I know already the Patriot Guard will be there and I am hoping the word has got out to other Veteran Organizations to help Ken the Dauber on his Mission...

Many Vets and families have helped Ken the Dauber already to get this far on his mission and it would be nice to know the American Legion is there... you maybe already but last I heard from Ken not many have been calling to help him..That sucks to me because my cousin a Vietnam ARMY Special Forces was KIA and is also one of Ken's portraits showing Vietnam as many of us know it...

So I hope we can get some help to Ken on what he needs. Please call Ken at 832-514-1452 and see how you can help him on this very Patriotic Mission...

Also Baytown Bert s a Vietnam Veteran....and my friend and every Veterans friends...please pass this e-mail to your e-mail list I want this to be a outstanding THANK YOU to our Fallen Hero's and to the Man Ken the Dauber for taken on this Mission to show we remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our FREEDOM..

Thank you and God Bless Our Troops

Proud to be a Veteran

WG Fitts

Life Member of VFW, VVA, DAV member of American Legion, AMVET..

Being dubbed my Dauber name

Last week I told you a little about Ken "the Dauber" Pridgeon and how he exited the Air Force and began painting billboards to make ends meet. This week, I once again sat down with Ken at his studio – KTD Signs on Morrell Street and we dug a little deeper into his passion, which is, of course – painting and painting he does well. He had just put the finishing touches (dauber-style) on his story of struggle and armed conflict, covering the wounding of Sgt. Nick Marshall in the war torn hell of Iraq and we discussed the future of art in Baytown.

This finishes up a two-part story on Ken, but hopefully the best part of his story is yet to be told.

"Many good artists lost their lives on those billboards and this story is just one of many and probably won't help anyone remember the loss. Anyway, I was fortunate to end up with my own sign business and in fact, quite a few businesses altogether. You see I am a good designer, but not a good businessman. (Ken laughs) Somehow I've stayed in business over thirty years, starting with lettering on barges for Hollywood Marine.

Here I was, more artist, than athlete, in another hazardous job! Each day, I would ride a tug out into the Gulf. They would hang me over the side and I would commence to letter those barges, waves lapping up around me. It was good money and I kind of felt like my own boss, but one day I lettered a barge and the thing blew up the next day, letting me know that this was as dangerous as billboard painting. That helped me make up my mind to try something else.

So here I go lettering helicopter pads on offshore oil platforms for my next adventure. The crew loved the fact that I could custom letter logos and all kinds of things. One day I was painting a landing pad with a heavy brush – daubing, as the material was thick and had sand in it to keep the helicopters from sliding off into the Gulf. Mr. Powell of Powell Industries watched me working and asked why I painted like that and I explained the only way to make the paint stick was to daub it on. He laughed and told me from this day forward, he was christening me "Ken the Dauber" and well, the name stuck.

Forty years have passed and I made some good and some bad business decisions, but I've continued to learn and paint and these days I'm solid as steel in my desire to teach budding artists and continue my own education. I just want to be a fine arts painter and have folks stop and stare at my art and the stories each one tells. I am so truly blessed to get up each day and paint. Someone mentioned that I may get rich from my paintings and I just looked them in the eye and said - I already am. Each day I can paint makes my life richer.

Enter the Baytown Art League and Baytown's rich history. City Council has purchased a wonderful building at 110 Texas Avenue for us to have an Art Gallery and School and now it is up to us to justify their faith in us as artists, photographers and anyone who loves art.

I am just a paint dauber, but as I've said, it's my dream to grow into a fine arts painter. One time I heard that there are over a thousand styles of painting and I think I know about 300 of them and I want to learn more. I want to share knowledge and we seasoned artists want to paint our knowledge onto the canvas' of young artists minds. That is what the Art League is all about – sharing. Artists, painters and photographers sharing technique, ideas, experience and the simply joy of our individual artistic endeavors.

With our new building at 110 Texas Avenue we have room to grow. All we need are budding artists. Membership is very reasonably priced and yes, we will gladly accept any and all help we can get to make our new building represent the future generations of artists. We need folks to join and we need a little help from those who are supportive. In fact, a membership would make a wonderful gift for someone you love.

I'm just a dauber, but I want to thank our city council for making this dream come true. I was at one of the town meetings and I'm sure it wasn't easy bringing everyone into agreement on this project, but I know why they did it – to preserve our history through developing the artistic abilities of our budding artists, young and old(er). Our developing artists will record tomorrow's memories, but first we must make a platform for them to grow.

It's my personal dream to paint a large multi-pane mural of the history of Baytown and I am asking to copy any and all old photos that showed the Tri-City area of Pelly, Goose Creek, New Town, Wooster, Baytown and Cedar Bayou, to name a few. I can be reached by phone at 832-514-1452. Come on by for a visit".

My Life As A Billboard Artist

I met Ken "the Dauber" Pridgeon this year at the Baytown Fine Rides car show on Texas Avenue. He was seated comfortably on a folding chair, artist's pad on his lap, doing what he does – sketching in preparation to paint. He's a friendly, approachable artist, humble man, avid teacher and a local treasure, to be sure.

Recently Ken and I met at Starbucks on Garth road to discuss his painting depicting Iraqi Freedom Purple Heart Recipient, Sgt. Nick Marshall and "Dauber" in his usual entertaining and charming way began to expand on this particular painting's" story. Ken is a passionate veteran artist and his visions come to life in his paintings. This is his two-part story in his own words and his emotion-laden telling brought tears to our eyes.

"Well, I started out as simply Ken Pridgeon, USAF 10 years - electronics technician and artist to the boys. You see we didn't have color photographs in 1953 so I would make Sepia tone wedding pictures into color photos for the guys wives and families when I was in Germany. I was 17 years old and it seems like yesterday that I spent my 21st birthday in Paris, France - bleep! (Editors note: He laughed at this point)

I got out of the Air Force in 1963 and did not know how to talk civilian. I must skip some things and go straight to what I had dreamed of doing, from when I did my first sketch – become a billboard artist (be careful what you wish for!). My first day painting, (wow, what a day!) they put me on a ball hanging from a crane, with a 25-pound hook on each shoulder and hoisted me up 75 feet to the top of a billboard over on I-45. Let me explain, normally, instead of hooking onto the painter, they put the hooks 20 feet apart on each side of the boardwalk and hung what was known as "Falls" onto them, so we could pull the "Stage" which was another word for the walk-board that painters pulled up to stand on, while they laid out the sign.

We painted automobiles, cigarettes packs, whiskey bottles, Marlboro cowboys and waterfalls for Kool cigarettes. We also did all the Old Grandad whiskey ads. Every year we painted the new automobile billboards and nobody even knew we were there or cared and we painters got zero recognition for laying our lives on the line every day. We were invisible in our trade and the hazards were many. We painted one billboard each day for about $7 an hour. It was dangerous work and we lost many good artists in the time I was painting billboards due to fatal and crippling falling accidents and it was quietly talked about in hush tones by us painters and then hidden away in the backs of our minds.

If people are interested in why I paint so rough I guess it is because we painted up 65-feet above the ground using rags for brushes. Grabbing a rag from the box we'd just daub onto the red, black and yellow paint for the wood grain backgrounds. We would mix up a good background color on the rag and go horizontally across the board wiggling as we went for the wood grain, then daub into the black and red for the knotholes. You get the idea.

For the Kool cigarette waterfall we would do almost the same thing except use the blue, white, and tallow to make the pretty water bubbles and pat-pat-pat for the foam at the bottom. By the way, we were good artists! When it was raining, we would paint the signs inside with brushes because "the bid boys" (sponsors) were watching. We painted some fine portraits of the Mist Scotch girls and the KIKK disk jockeys and people running for mayor and other political offices.

Well, I did this for a few years and even bought a family plot at the cemetery so my folks would have a place to put me. There were so many ways for a person to lose their life doing this kind of work and I didn't want to be a financial burden if I fell. The biggest problem with working up high like that is even if a bomb goes off under you, you have to stay focused on what you are doing or you will over react and if you do - you are a goner. Speaking of distractions, the day I finally quit painting billboards, I was working my way around a monster-sized billboard staying real close to it, as it is a very narrow walk board up there. I startled a pigeon nesting under the board. He flew up through my jacket and out under my chin with lots of flapping, flopping, and scratching. I looked down 65 foot to the railroad tracks below and of course it could have been a feather bed and I would not have survived the fall. To make a long story shorter, I climbed down thanking the Lord for every step and went home never to return to the dangers of being a billboard artist".

Note: Next week Ken will tell us about his "Dauber" nickname, his dreams about teaching young artists and the future of the Baytown Art League's new building on Texas Avenue.