Business Card ~ Joseph H. Bryan-Royster
I posted one card on each side of The Hub bulletin board today, at the corner of Main and Federal Streets in downtown Nantucket. This is my first visit to the island since October, 2010 after moving off-island in November, 1987. I first set foot upon this "rock" on October 4th, 1971 after hitch-hiking across America from southern California where I was born. My art business here began in 1972 when I established "HwR Signs" in basement of Emmon's Corner (front end of 21 Federal Street). I carried my original candle-lantern from here and walked along Main Street during my first Summer on the island in 1972...
HwR Signs ~ First shop at Emmon's Corner
During my first marriage, I had lived with my wife in a cottage on Washington Street Extension and set up my art and sign business in the front end of basement at 54 Center Street, "The Artworkshop." The Recession of 1974 blindsided me by triggering a business collapse, causing my wife to return to her parents, forcing me to live in the shop as I could not afford to rent anything more than a room in town. Later, I did move inside the house at 54 Center Street where I continued to paint signs and do house portraits for Summer residents of the island.
The Artworkshop ~ Second shop at 54 Center Street
A third proposed location for my sign and art business was in basement of 47 Union Street, provided that I recovered sufficiently from the recession to purchase such a property if it ever went on the market. Neither happened, to the best of my knowledge, so I decided upon a practical route by taking a job at the Jared Coffin House in the kitchen and working my way into the Maintenance Department, where I learned the interior painting trade. I then started working for painting contractors on the island, until meeting my second wife (and mother of my two children) in 1985. After Mary's birth at Nantucket Cottage Hospital, I left Nantucket with Susan and moved to Gloucester on the North Shore, where David was born in 1990. We lived on Wheeler Street in a home we bought together and sold 20 years later. After moving with Susan to New Bedford on the South Coast, and both our children leaving home, I made a conscious decision to leave my wife of 30 years and join the Sirius Community, a sustainable eco-village founded in 1978 by former members of Findhorn in Scotland. I AM presently a full Member there and now have come full circle with the place where was once known as "The Pen and Ink Artist of Main Street," returning to walk upon the cobblestones of Main Street that inspired me to leave California and hitch my way to the "Far-Away Island" in May of 1971... arriving via ferry in October of the same year...
Third Shop never realized (location: 47 Union Street)
~ Joseph David Henry Ware Bryan-Royster ~
The Lanternlight Traveller ~ 9th Archetype, otherwise known as The Hermit
In Memory of
NELSON JOHN DONALDSON
June 5, 1950 ~ September 29, 1967
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whomever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life." ~ John 3:16
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