Tony Craig paints Min-O-Pon's memories - The Stanly News & Press - Bondiewithlove (2024)

Tony Craig spent many years as an artist for Warner Brothers and Disney, but it was the fond memories of his childhood in Stanly County that inspired his latest creation.
Craig moved to California in 1989 to pursue his dream of working for the Walt Disney Company. After two years of studying at the California Institute of the Arts, he was hired in the animation industry at Warner Brothers, where he worked on the original “Tiny Toon Adventures.” He later worked at Disney and Hanna-Barbera. He returned to North Carolina in 2008 to focus on his own creations and freelance animation.
In his latest creation, Craig released a limited edition 30×15-inch print of the Min-O-Pon, which closed in 2018 after more than 60 years in business.
The Min-O-Pon served breakfast and lunch, but it was also known over the years as a place to buy bait and tackle on the way to the lake.
Jason Palmer’s parents, Randy and Hazel, operated the Min-O-Pon in the mid-1990s. Palmer remembers collecting minnows.
He bought the original painting from Craig.
“I love it. It’s just like I remember it when Mom and Dad had it,” Palmer said.
For Craig, it was a mix of growing up in Albemarle and trips home that inspired this project.
“I had moved to California to work at Disney, but Mom and Dad, who were from Albemarle, would take us to Atlantic Beach every year and our route was Highway 24. I would come back every summer for that trip because we had two guaranteed weeks in a timeshare in the middle of the summer,” Craig said. “And I would stop at the Min-O-Pon every time and buy a Cheerwine and a bag of crackers for the drive down to the coast. So it was kind of a ritual for me and I was really disappointed when they tore it down. I had wanted to repaint it for a long time and I had a lot of reference photos from the mid-’90s until after it closed in 2018.”
Craig said it took him many years to figure out what he wanted the painting to look like. He drew inspiration from several photographs, then added a boat, a truck and a Merita Bread truck.
“It took me a long time to get a composition for this painting that I liked and to combine several elements from several photographs to create a composition that seemed more active than some of the images I had,” he said.
He spent about a month and a half, or 130 hours in total, on the Min-O-Pon board.
“This one was more detailed than usual,” he said. “I was just spending a whole day at the gas pumps and putting out the leaves.
“I don’t think people realize how much time we spend on these things.”
Although he painted the Pontiac sign in downtown Albemarle, which remains on the side of the Five Points Public House, Craig said he wanted to paint other parts of Stanly County history.
He also gives credit to another local artist.
“I respect and admire all the paintings that Roger Thomas has done of his memories of Stanly County, so I would like to start painting some of my memories as well,” Craig said.
One of the paintings he would like to see is of a walk through the Sky City parking lot in the 1980s. Sky City was part of a discount chain store.
“I was a projectionist and an usher at the movie theater, so I had to change the marquee and you had to deal with all the people coming through and going through the maze to do it,” he said. “I remember when I went to change the sign on the side of the building and ‘Ghostbusters’ was finally coming to Albemarle. As soon as I put the letters ‘Ghostbusters’ up, everyone was cheering. I felt like a hero because they knew ‘Ghostbusters’ was coming the next day.”
He said he couldn’t find many photographs of Sky City, adding that there wasn’t much to be found on a Google search.
“Often, why take a picture of an object? You think it’s always going to be there, and then it’s gone,” he said. “So I’m going to have to use a lot of imagination and a lot of creative freedom.”
He would also like to paint Jay’s Downtowner, Jay’s Seafood and the recently demolished Uwharrie Sportsman.
“The reason I wanted to paint these things is because I hate to see all these old things go. And to me, I don’t even see why they should go, because I think they probably could have been saved in some way, but I know it’s a decision that the owners have to make, whether they want to take care of it or not,” he said.
“But the problem is, when something like that goes away, the individual restaurant that offers a home-cooked meal instead of processed fast food, it’s not replaced by another restaurant somewhere else that looks like it. That’s not the case anymore. And I really feel a sense of loss when those things go away.”
Whether a business closes because the founders die or because their successors don’t want to continue the hard work, Craig urges people to support local businesses while they exist.
“If there are still any mom-and-pop businesses left, they could really use your support to stay open,” he said.
Anyone interested in learning more about Min-O-Pon printmaking can contact Craig at www.facebook.com/tonycraigag. He plans to be in the Stanly County area Wednesday and Thursday for anyone interested in having a painting hand-delivered to them.