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WHISKEY PAINTERS OF AMERICA (WPA)

In 1951, a group of close knit watercolor artists, inspired by Akron, Ohio industrial designer, Joseph Ferriot, met at the Tangier Restaurant in Akron to formalize their group's name and validate theri genre of watercolor painting by using alcohol instead of water as the media agent.

Ferriot had experimented with the style while traveling the country on sales missions for the emerging post World War II boom in plastic mold design.

Using a common, rectangular aspirin tin to store strips of paper; miniature brushes and dallops of paste, Ferriot charmed patrons at roadside watering holes and city cocktail lounges by producing miniature masterpieces by dipping the tiny brushes into his favorite spirits.

As fascination with the artform grew, a cult-like-following blossomed as fellow artists and imbibers from the Akron Society of Artists joined him on his nightly rounds of Akron's nightclubs. Tony Cross of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio told an editor at Akron Life and Leisure magazine in 2003 that the habit of tipping waitresses with the tiny keepsakes became a regular practice.

Cross is the last original member of the first Whiskey Painters who met with Ferriot at their first meeting. He talked about the rules they established and are still in effect to date:

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