Biography

Okay, Carolyn, Kathy, and any other bi-robin members.........uh, you know
what I mean (members of the Iris and the Daylily e-mail groups). 
Here is my bio.......off the top of my head.

BIOGRAPHY as of today ;)

My name is Richard William Haynes (I keep the middle name because there is
another artist in New Hampshire with the same name and since we both do
international shows..........)

I am 49 years old, married to my wife, Joan for 26 years. I have been an
artist since the age of 8 but professionally once I got out of college and
found people actually had to work to exist. Though I spent 3 years pre-med
unitl I developed bleeding ulcers at the thought of med-school/$$$$ and was
told to re-enter doing something I liked. Since I was already drawing on my
lecture notes I decided to waste my life and become an artist with panic
attacks and agoraphobia (all artists must suffer).

We lived in apartments for 19 years (more suffering to make my art better),
and  the last being a "garden apartment" that had no "garden" whatsoever.
with the permission of the landlord, I made it into the Hanging Gardens of
Belleville, NJ. complete with Wild and Son daylilies and Schreiner Irises
(I'll bet you thought I forgot). I liked the irises as flowers but never saw
them as painting source material until my work started selling in galleries
and I lightened my commercial work load so I could dabble in the Fine Arts.
Each year Joan and I would attend the Presby Iris Gardens in Upper Montclair
in the Spring and relish in all those blooms (over 6000 cultivars...they told
me last year). We bought a house in late 1989 and began to turn Norway maple
rooted muddy weeds into a bit of a garden. In the past few years I have
become fanatical about breeding tetraploid daylilies and painting irises
(though now I paint much larger paintings as well...................which
remindes me      "miniartist"

I became a miniaturist (NO NOT DOLL-HOUSE PAINTINGS) back in the early
1980's, mainly because of all the red dots(sold work) I saw at an exhibition.
So I worked at it and eventually began winning awards and selling work in
Miniature Art Exhibitions and galleries)   now back to
irises.....................

So now I want to really LEARN about irises the way I have about daylilies,
breeding, culture, etc.  I find them a far better subject to paint due to
their sculptural quality (though I must say some of the spider daylilies and
edged cultivars are geting more 'paintable'). I like  iris that are very wide
 and complex (frilled)  but that could change with the next cultivar I
see........whites give the best   creative shadow colors.  I have been
limited to  Schreiners and Cooley's cultivars but like with daylilies (Wild
and Son), they will just be a beginning (not that I have alot of  planting
space..........I just keep a good supply of Iris borers onhand so I have room
to order new cultivars each Summer.

I live in Fairfiled, NJ. I have heard rumors that there are other daylily
fanatics in Northern New Jersey but  have also heard rumors of the New Jersey
Devil (sort of like the Abomidable Snowman  who likes New Jersey).

I hope there are some Iris people out there that share the same area code.
The "garden state" is a rather strange state logo. If you have ever been to
New Jersey, and ANY other state, you know what I mean.

I'd love to hear from any iri hybridizers out there as I'm sure breeding
irises is a bit more complex than the daylilies.

Rich Haynes
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