An artist for all seasons
Everything in life inspires him
Maura Curley
He sees the natural world as images to draw, sculpt and paint. And he expresses his views of people and politics with his satirical pen.
Paul Borghi fuses his background in commercial, fine art and education into an amazing amalgamation of creations, which include painting, sculpture, sandblasting, airbrushing, book illustration, logo and costume design and caricatures for political cartoons.
He says everything in life inspires him.
This everything has included a harrowing experience with a bull shark and a two and a half month bout with ciguatera.
He was swimming near his Water island home off the coast of St. Thomaswhen he came face to face with the shark in powerful water. He says the shark was totally unaffected by the water's surges and didn't waver in his movements a fraction of an inch.
Yet Borghi managed to free himself, and live to sketch what might have been.
He jokes now that the big shark didn't get the best of him, but eating a little mackerel,laid him up for nearly two and a half months with ciguatera.
He could barely even hold a pen.
But now he is feeling better, and creating more terrific tee shirt designs, which he markets under his business Paul Borghi Design. Though sometimes copied, it's easy to tell the difference between an authentic Borghi, and a knock off.
Borghi, has been pursuing his art for half a century.
A native of Massachusetts, he graduated from Boston's Vesper George with a degree in commercial art and later pursued a degree in fine art at the University of Wyoming. He has a degree in art education too.
He says he loved teaching art to elementary students in Wyoming, because they were so open to expressing themselves.
He'd turn off the lights in the classroom, and play his guitar and sing songs like Puff the Magic Dragon and Looking Out the Back Door by Credence. He'd ask his students to draw images the music conjured in their minds.
Borghi says he was enthralled by wildlife in Wyoming, which he sketched, painted, sculpted. and carved. He also took his four children on wilderness expeditions.
Borghi visited the Virgin Islands on a charter yacht in 1974 and was determined he'd return. Back in Wyoming he opened abusiness, he called Island Bound Graphics. But he didn't actually get back to St.Thomas until 1990. He later moved to Water Island, where he refurbished a house damaged by Hurricane Marilyn.
Borghi says diving and snorkeling introduced him to another world of art, and he loves learning new things.
He got his captain's license and ran did fishing charters for a while, before the demands of his art took over.
He still designs some of the most in demand specialty items in St.Thomas, and can be found singing and playing his guitar during open mike night at Tickles Restaurant in St. Thomas Crown Bay Marina.
Maura Curley is publisher of virginvocies.com.
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