Window Cleaner Turns A Sideline Into A Passion

Hobby turns into a sideline that's a passion: You've probably seen street vendor Mike Bryand (pictured above) and his pictures for sale on the downtown Wilmington riverfront (above). They're the ones that spur couples into friendly arguments about whether it's painting or picture or something else entirely. Starting April 24, every second and fourth Saturday of each month, he'll be one of the new artist vendors lining the streets of the Farmer's Market with his work on display.

“It's just to have some fun,” he said last week. “My expectation at the Farmer's Market is to meet some people and hear some good stories and sell some prints and just represent Wilmington well.” He was sitting in the Dixie Grill downtown, in which hang a dozen or so of his prints, with a couple dozen more in a bin up front, all for sale. There are pictures of the Coast Guard cutter docked in Wilmington, a Wrightsville Beach pier, white herons, rocking chairs on beachfront porches, and a myriad other scenes. They all look like paintings; none actually are.

“I'll take (pictures of) anything that doesn't talk back,” he said. He's come to call his photography business Wilmington360, which he operates with help from his wife, Cathy. His “real” job is owning and operating Clearview Window Cleaning, a business he started when he moved to Wilmington from Rhode Island in 1988. He jokingly refers to himself as “a transparent glass technician.” But this, the photography – this is life. “This is a blown-out hobby,” he said. “I hate to use the word – I think it's overused – but it's turned into a passion…The first thing I do in the morning is start working on stuff, then the last thing I do before I go to bed is work on something.”

He's been a photographer for the past 15 years or so, photographing birds and wildlife and landscapes just for fun. He's also done some journalistic work for news organizations, such as United Press International, shooting automobile and motorcycle races. For years, he'd had countless ideas but couldn't risk using film he might need for more important things. “There were all these things I wanted to try, but couldn't afford to make a mistake,” he said.

Then photography went digital and Bryand's passion exploded. He left two rolls of film on his desk, “To remind me I never wanted to use film again,” he says. “And I never looked back.” Some of his work takes around five hours to complete; some he's been working on for the past year. He'll put up for sale for the first time at the Farmer's Market a photograph of Wrightsville Beach titled “Day at the Beach.” He's worked on it for over a year. Bryand doesn't give away his secrets. All he'll say is that he uses something similar to Photoshop, and that it's sort of like wedding photography software. But he's silent about how exactly he changes pictures into paintings. Magicians don't reveal their tricks.