ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 1, 1996 TAG: 9605010085
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: JOANNE POINDEXTER STAFF WRITER
DOWN ON HOBBY SHOP LANE at the Elks National Home, the fellows work for enjoyment, not profit. They paint, repair golf clubs or do woodworking, making everything from door ornaments and toy vehicles to tables.
Ralph Rorrer doesn't enter art shows anymore.
"I'm just getting too old," he says.
But the retired commercial artist from Roanoke has paintings hanging throughout the Elks National Home here. A picture featuring a wide-eyed boy is part of the Elks' annual lighted display at Christmas.
An oil painting of a turkey is displayed at the home during Thanksgiving. His painting of Jesus on the cross is used at Easter.
Rorrer says he's too old, but he still spends three to four hours a day in his studio, painting his boyhood memories and requests from others.
Rorrer, who brags that he's 88 even though his birthday isn't until September, is one of 25 men who have their own rent-free shops at the home. Rorrer's studio is on the first floor of the administration building; the other workshops line Hobby Lane in I Building, which is also a residential building.
The 170 residents of the home, all members of Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, come from the 50 states as well as Guam, the Philippines, the Panama Canal Zone and Puerto Rico. They've been doctors, teachers, lawyers , salesmen and artists.
The Elks' hobbies are as varied as their backgrounds.
Art Decker, a retired industrial arts teacher, seems to be in charge of Hobby Lane. He redesigned the "Ye Work Shoppe," a large room with saws and other equipment available to all residents on the lane.
"You have to prove to Decker that you can handle" the electric saws and other equipment, says Rorrer, an Elk for more than 40 years.
Hank Sabathne, a retired road engineer from Pennsylvania, says working on wooden silhouettes and other crafts "beats sitting in one of them rooms all day."
He has decorated a wall in his apartment with the silhouettes of antique cars.
He makes only a few of any item because "someone will want one, and then [woodworking] becomes a job. I don't want a job. It's a hobby."
A "When you're the best, it isn't bragging" sign hangs on the door to Gilbert Dinwiddie's shop. "He's the birdhouse king," says Decker, who lived in New York, Florida and South Carolina before retiring to the Elks home.
Bud Hershey, a former Lancaster, Pa., resident who has "done a little bit of everything" to earn a living, makes model cars, drag racers and trucks in his shop. But he doesn't sell them; he gives them to agencies to distribute to needy children.
Nick Fortunato's studio has a calendar with pictures he's taken of the Fortunato family - Fortunato, his nine siblings and a couple of nieces and nephews. Although Fortunato's main hobby is radio-controlled boating, "he'll try anything," Decker says.
Jerome Heary, who refinished furniture for the Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church in Bedford, has a "Lungs at Work" sign and a Roanoke Express hockey sticker on his door. He's now starting flowers from seeds for the church.
Arthur Mazowiecki, who recently had flowers in the window of his shop, is the home's recycling specialist. The 86-year-old widower took leftover pieces of wood and made two tall racks for his videotape collection and a three-drawer dresser. He also made shelves to extend his windowsill.
Mazowiecki, a retired public-works director from Clinton, N.J., says he only did normal home repairs before moving to the Elks' home.
Chuck Conway, a retired printer from Marietta, Ohio, who does portraits, painted a landscape of a river and mountains on the door of his workshop.
A sign on Dwight Shelton's door urges visitors to "Say No to Drugs." On the inside, the man described as a "pretty good golfer" repairs golf clubs.
The signs on Rorrer's door says "Ralph Rorrer's Studio" and "Ladies."
"Some wiseacre put it up there," he explains the latter.
The ironing board in the cubbyhole is not for stretching canvas or anything of an artistic nature. Rorrer used it to iron his own white shirts because they weren't stiff enough when they came back from the laundry. The ironing board is part of the decor now because "I don't wear too many white shirts."
He used to ride the Vitamaster bike sitting in the center of the room until he started having problems with his right arm and had to limit his activities. He stopped driving two years ago, which was also the last time he took his annual trek to Sharp Top on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
"I can't play pool or golf or anything that requires exertion, but thankfully it hasn't affected my painting."
Rorrer, who started working with pen and ink as a youngster, has painted more than 150 pictures since he moved to the Elks home 12 years ago, about 18 months after his wife died.
He had been a free-lance commercial artist. "I got all the work nobody else wanted."
But, he says, "I doubt if anybody would remember my work." Many of his sketches - he had no formal training - appeared in Kenrose Manufacturing Co. and Lady Bird Apparel ads.
Using pen and ink, he says, was valuable because "I had to learn perspective." But, he says, that form of art is "unforgiving because you can't paint over it" like the watercolors and oils he now uses.
His first exhibit was in a Norfolk and Western Railway art show at Hotel Roanoke in 1952.
A painting of the Big Otter Mill on Virginia 122 earned him not only a best-in-show award in an American Association of University Women show, but also $350, the highest bid he's had on a painting.
He's earned other awards, including a national Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl Environmental Award.
He says he now paints for enjoyment, although he still does commissions. He has sold people in Florida, Connecticut and Ohio, and current customers include residents, staff and board members at the home.
But the money is not important. "I sell enough to keep me interested in doing it," he says, and is more concerned with his patrons' liking their paintings.
If a resident at the home really likes a painting but cannot afford to buy it, Rorrer lets him borrow it. He has bartered with other residents and has "a deal with the home ... I do anything they need," including posters for special events and displays.
Rorrer used to sell his work around Bedford, but the local market may have dried up because, he says, "most everybody who knows me has a painting."
LENGTH: Long : 124 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ARNE KUHLMANN/Staff. 1. Chuck Conway was a printerby CNBbefore he retired and took up painting as a hobby, often doing
portraits. He also painted a landscape of a river and mountains on
the door of his workshop. 2. Hank Sabathne proudly displays some of
his work, a series of handcrafted silhouettes of vintage autos. He
says it "beats sitting in one of them rooms all day.'' 3. Ralph
Rorrer, a retired commercial artist, has his work displayed
throughout the Elks National Home. color.