Doug Brannan

As a young boy growing up during the 1950’s & 60’s, I had two major passions… art and music.
My remote family home was located thirty miles west of Phoenix, Arizona, in a farming area known as the Buckeye Valley. There were plenty of cotton and alfalfa fields surrounded by countless miles of desert and cactus covered mountains, but no art museum or music theatres.
So I learned to entertain myself by drawing my own artwork. Mostly pictures of cars, airplanes, army tanks, spaceships and robots. I spent so much time drawing and coloring pictures that my parents were certain I would grow up to be a professional artist. That would have been fine with me since my favorite subject during all four years of high school was art class. I was yearbook editor and enjoyed acting in the school theatre productions. (Read more below)

As for music, I learned to love the songs featured in my parent’s record collection by artists like Patsy Cline, Sam Cooke, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and even Lawrence Welk. But the real fun started later when my folks gave me my very own transistor radio. I quickly got hooked on rock-n-roll by the Beatles, Beach Boys, Roy Orbison, The Four Seasons, Johnny Cash, and so on. I used up dozens of 9 volt batteries listening to the DJ’s on KRUX and KRIZ in Phoenix and KOMA all the way from in Oklahoma City at night.
My father took notice of my fascination with radio and told me about an announcement he had heard on his favorite station. It was an invitation to high school students to participate in a two week radio broadcasting course at Phoenix College. I jumped at the chance to attend and those efforts resulted in a very successful thirty year career in radio broadcasting as an on-air personality (otherwise known as a DJ), music director, and manager of various departments at many of the best known stations in Phoenix.
Throughout my broadcast career I dabbled in the arts, drawing and painting as a hobby. Then a few years ago I found myself seeking a new challenge and decided on combining my love for art with my interest in collecting unique items I would find in antique shops, thrift stores and yard sales. Items that some might think of as junk, I value as treasured found objects to be used in my new endeavor,,, creating assemblage art, recycled robot sculptures. Their sole mission is to bring a smile to the faces of those who share a fascination for seeing old unused items turned into something new and entertaining for art lovers of all ages.
Being an artist has resulted in my enjoying a happy, healthy, creative life.