DAMON RAREY Damon Rarey received a B.A. in Art from Yale University in 1968.
BIOGRAPHYMarch 18, 1944 - December 15, 2002
He was a freelance illustrator and animator in the San Francisco Bay Area until becoming Graphics Director for Hugh Downs' daily, magazine-format Over Easy program at KQED-TV in 1976. He also wrote and produced segments for Over Easy, which was distributed to over 250 PBS stations nationwide.
In 1977 he was a consultant at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) where he used the first computer paint system, Dr. Richard Shoup's seminal "Superpaint" system (utilizing the first frame buffer and the first graphical user interface in history). Using Superpaint Damon created the first nationally broadcast computer animations during the 10 days of NASA's Pioneer Venus Encounter, which were shown on the nightly news programs of ABC, CBS, and NBC.
In 1980 Damon and Dick Shoup founded Aurora Systems, the first company devoted to the design and manufacture of computer videographic systems. Damon was VP Marketing for the company until 1993, when he left to pursue his freelance illustration business full time. He continued consulting for Aurora (now a division of Chyron, Inc., a TV graphics equipment manufacturer), helping in the development and documentation of the Aurora software, now in its third generation, called Liberty. Liberty is used in television applications around the world, most visibly at CNN. Damon traveled extensively around the world to do sales and training, including France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, England, Japan, Russia, and Brazil.
Starting in 1990, Damon devoted himself to his illustration and animation company, Prism Arts Group. Prism's clients included Chevron, Bechtel, The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and other Bay Area companies, as well as, most recently, the ESPN X-Games broadcast from San Francisco. Damon taught computer graphics at the Santa Rosa Community College for several semesters.
In 1995 Damon created his first website, a site of his father's World War II Air Force sketchbook journals, which quickly won Netscape's Best Site of the Week award. He self-published a book of his father's artwork and letters, Laughter and Tears, based on the website. Most recently he spoke on the topic "Fathered By Cartoons" at the Ohio Historical Society's "Kilroy Was Here" exhibit in Columbus, Ohio. Damon's fictionalized autobiographical comic strip, Alum Falls, is on the web at www.alumfalls.com.
Damon lived in Santa Rosa, California, for twenty-five years with his wife, Linda, who teaches Gerentology at the Santa Rosa Community College and Sonoma State University. Their children are Ondine, Jessica, and Eli. Damon was active in church and community affairs, having recently been named to the board of directors of the Sonoma County Library Foundation.
Damon passed away on December 15, 2002.
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