Born in Rochester, NY, of parents with wanderlust,
Randy began moving within 7 days. An insurance salesman, his father’s
main talent was to expand his company into new areas. By age 18, Randy
had lived in 32 different houses all over the United States. He joined
the U.S. Navy in order to minimize his traveling for a while and stayed
for 24 years. During his Navy career he traveled to almost all parts of
the world. The only exceptions are the Persian Gulf and South Africa.
Randy retired from the Navy in 1988 and settled in the Hampton Roads
area of Virginia where he started a new career as a computer programmer.
One of Randy’s hobbies was photography. After
meeting his future wife (Karen Christman) in 1980, she took him to his
first egg show – The Star City Egg Show in Roanoke, VA where he was
fascinated by the eggs and took lots of pictures. Later, encouraged by
such artists as Yvonne Righter, Ed Sims, Janie Christman, LeeRoy
McDaniel, and Barbara Frye, he began offering his photographs for sale.
Randy quickly became the “official photographer” for most of the east
coast egg shows and was invited to display and sell his photographs at
the Isobel Taylor Invitational Egg Show. His photographs were regularly
featured in Kit Stansbury’s Treasure Chest and Egger’s Journal.
After photographing shows and contests for several years, Randy became
involved in the development of the Masters Program and participated in
the Pilot Program as both photographer and judge trainee. When the Pilot
Program became the Masters Program we know now, Randy continued to be
photographer and judge for several years. Randy and Karen co-directed
the Eggs-Otic Egg Art Show in Virginia Beach, VA for seven years. In
1997, when the state-of-the-art in affordable cameras allowed the
general public to be able to photograph eggs themselves, Randy retired
from professional egg photography, although he still takes photos for
personal use and for the IEAG website.
Though he has not designed an egg from start to
finish himself (he says that his art lies in other directions), he has
cut many eggs and taught both cutting and care of cutting tools and
compressors.
As a member of the IEAG, Randy has been active in
promoting egg art and involved in all facets of the art and the Guild.
When Karen became IEAG Treasurer in 2003, Randy was asked to take over
and revitalize the Guild’s website. Moving the site to a registered name
of our own was the first of his many innovations. Galleries of photos
from egg shows, recognition of Masters Program participants, listing
teachers and egg clubs are only a few of the new areas on the Guild
website now. Behind the scenes, the Guild membership database is now
being maintained on the website server. This means that up-to-date
information on all members is available to Officers from anywhere they
happen to be.
Most recently Randy, with the help of his daughter
Debbie Bodnar, has been digitally re-mastering and restoring decades of
egg photographs from negatives that were starting to show the ravages of
time. These photos are being offered on CD and DVD as a history of egg
art and to show the evolution of the art over the last few decades.
