By Darragh Doiron
The Port Arthur News
March 26, 2008 02:20 pm
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Cindy McIntyre of Maine was known as Cynthia Bourgeois when she delivered The Port Arthur News. The Thomas Jefferson High School graduate’s photography will be part of the Bayou City Art Festival in Houston’s Memorial Park this weekend.
Her photographs have included Port Arthur scenes and she has produced a coffee table book, "Seattle, Tacoma and the Puget Sound Region" that was re-done in 1993 with updated images. "Tacoma” is her second book. The festival will be Friday, March 28, through Sunday, March 30. About 900 artists from around the country vie for the 300 vendor slots.
“I was born in Port Arthur, but my folks moved to Corpus Christi when I was 18 months old. Hurricane Carla came through when I was a baby but there was no damage to our house,” McIntyre said. “Of course, it was difficult to change schools and friends when I was nearly ready to graduate, but I managed to make some very special friends thanks to ‘Star Trek.’ You see, there was a local program on TV called "Let Me Speak to the Manager." Someone had written in that they wanted to start a Star Trek Club, and soon there were lots of us nerdy loner types who met in a different person's house each week, having great fun without drugs or drinks — just good clean entertainment that we made ourselves. Most of us went to Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur.”
“After a semester at Lamar University, I joined the U.S. Army to get away from home, to grow up, and to see the world while doing something honorable. It was 1973 and our boys were coming home from 'Nam, and I did basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C.,” McIntyre said. “I was stationed in Kaiserslautern, Germany with HHC 24th Engineer Group and it was there that I got interested in photography. I bought my first 35mm camera at the PX and a year later, after I got out of the Army and married a fellow from my unit and moved to his hometown of Tacoma, Washington, I began selling my photographs at local art shows.”
She said most of her education came from the “School of Hard Knocks.”
“I took a class in college, and several professional development classes, including how to hand-tint photographs. I've pretty much abandoned film and the darkroom the last few years in favor of the digital dark room. It's opened up a whole new world of image creation and manipulation, and like any creative person, I am always learning,” she said.
“When I divorced, I had planned to move to Bisbee, Arizona, an artsy town that had captivated me several years before. After 18 years of Tacoma drizzle, I wanted sunshine. But I had made a detour to Maine to work on an organic farm just for something different to do, and fell in love with the landscape and "Mayberry RFD" atmosphere.”
“I've done two more books since moving to Maine: ‘The Great Eastern Mussel Farms Cookbook’ and ‘A Century Apart — Maine Then and Now,’ she said. “I used century-old postcards of Maine Main streets and landmarks, and re-photographed them as they look today.”
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