Jeff: First of all, I think it’s wonderful what you’re doing. And I’m so glad that you’ve discovered all of these wonderful treasures that Don squirreled away over these years. Amazingly, he’s saved a lot of stuff.

Caroline: And it really was spurred on by your email as well.
I remembered that he probably at least had a portfolio of stuff. And when the De Beers guys were saying they couldn’t find many ads for the book they were putting together about the 100 years of DeBeers advertising, I took a chance that you might have them stored at your place.

I found a lot of them. Yes. And I’m trying to recondition and scan them - it’s a big journey. So you are from Pennsylvania? I read this morning that you went to The Haverford School.
Correct.

And that’s where you started? Was that a Quaker school?
Actually, it was founded as a Quaker school in the late 1800s, but it was not affiliated with any religion when I was there. I actually didn’t start there until ninth grade. As a young boy, we lived in rural Chester County near the village of Paoli. The school that I attended back then was an elementary school in Berwyn, if you are familiar with that area.

The name, yes.
When I was 12, we moved to Ardmore, a suburb of Philadelphia, where I spent two years in junior high school before transferring to The Haverford School, a private school for boys, for the four years of high school.

Wonderful.
From there I went to Cornell University, and I studied Fine Arts. After three semesters, I felt that I really wasn’t getting what I wanted at Cornell. I was looking for more of an advertising/graphic design program. That’s when I transferred to the Philadelphia Museum College of Art (PMCA), the same school that your father had attended. He was a few years older than me, so he had graduated before I got there. I didn’t actually meet him until many years later in New York when we were both working at N. W. Ayer. I had started my career in New York City in 1964, but moved to Philadelphia and joined Ayer in 1968. After about five years, they closed the Philadelphia office and transferred us all to the New York office. Don had come in from Chicago and was working on the De Beers account. Around 1980, I was promoted to Senior Vice President, Group Creative Director and assigned to run the creative work for the DeBeers account. Don was the senior art supervisor in my group.

Sadly the University of the Arts is now defunct, isn’t it?
Yes. PMCA became the University of the Arts in 1987. Unexpectedly, on May 31, 2024, the school administrators announced that the school would be closing. They just weren’t managing their money well. I felt sorry for all the students who had put their education in their hands. I am not sure where they all went, but apparently, other schools were willing to take some of the students in.

My friend in Pennsylvania received a letter from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, that are now in charge of the archives for the University of the Arts. I found it interesting that they are in charge of the memory of the school, the students, and their work. I thought maybe some of the work that I’ve discovered—the advertisements - even though they were made post-graduation—could interest them.
Many very good graduates of that school had successful careers in advertising and in the arts. The chairman of Ayer, Jerry Siano, was a guy from South Philly who went to PMCA and worked his way up the ranks to become the chairman when Ayer was a big company. There were many others.

Going back to when you were a little boy again, you grew up in a fascinating place. I also grew up in a farmhouse and love farmhouses. But yours was particularly interesting. Remind me, please, who it belonged to?
Wharton Esherick. A sculptor and woodworker who lived from 1887 to 1970.

Incredible.
Yes, we were really lucky. I was actually born in Rochester, New York. My father, who was from suburban Philadelphia, had taken a temporary job up there. I was born in May, and I think he was anxious to have me arrive so he could escape the brutal winters of Rochester. We moved to Narberth in suburban Philadelphia. When I was about two, my parents decided to move out to a more rural setting. They found a farmhouse, which was owned by Esherick. It had been his studio for many years until he built a new studio on the property and put the farmhouse up for rent. It was a fascinating place.

He put it up for rent, and your family was the first to rent it?
Exactly. We were his first tenants, and we lived there for about 11 years before moving to Ardmore, a suburban town near Narberth. But many years later, long after Wharton’s death, the Esherick family decided to sell the farmhouse. My son, Peter, bought it. He and his family lived there from 1999 until 2003, and I went back to visit my old boyhood home many times as a grandfather. It hadn’t changed very much; it was still a magnificent place.

And do you have memories of the artist?
Yes. We would visit his studio occasionally. The entire building was a work of art. It’s now the Wharton Esherick Museum and is open to the public. I’ve visited it many times over the years. He was extremely creative. It was just a short walk from the farmhouse to his studio, so as young kids, it was fascinating to see what he was making. He carved beautiful sculptures, designed wonderful furniture, and household items.

He is called the Dean of American Craftsmanship. 
Right. His work was exhibited in the New York World’s Fair in 1940 and in many other venues over the years. More recently the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, had a Wharton Esherick retrospective.

And do you have any visual memories of his work or things? 
Yes. In 2010, Wharton’s son-in-law, Mansfield Bascom, wrote a book titled “Wharton Esherick: The Journey of a Creative Mind”. It is a large-format, “coffee table” book published by Abrams with 276 pages filled with pictures of Esherick’s creations. Also, there are a couple of his original woodcut prints in our family. My two brothers each have one. I have many memories of what his work was like. And if you go to visit his studio now, it is just the way he left it, all these wonderful things around. Some of his work is in the The Philadelphia Museum of Art also. He was really quite a talented person.

That was your first inspiring introduction to art in your life? 
Absolutely. The environment in the farmhouse was so creative. There were paintings on the walls. Not hanging — literally paintings on the walls of the farmhouse of crazy things and characters that he invented - lots of beautiful colors.  He had named the property “Sunekrest” and designed a logo for it. It was sort of a sunrise-shaped logo that he carved in the doors, and he had a metal one on the side of the house. The creativity was everywhere, and it was a beautiful wooded property and a lovely farm. He had a large garden where he grew peonies, which he sold to the flower shops in Paoli.

That must have inspired all the beautiful colors in your paintings. 
Well, I'm sure it all came from there. I mean, there's no question in my mind.

Magical.
Yes, it was definitely magical.

So then you grew up and found yourself at N. W. Ayer in New York City. Is that where you met my father? 
Actually, after I graduated from PMCA in 1964, I went to New York City and worked at two other advertising agencies before joining Ayer. My first job was working in the mount room at an agency called D’Arcy. I don't think they even have mount rooms anymore. That was like one step up from working in the mail room. 

What did you have to do? 
I did all the matting and the mounting. I had to do mechanical layouts, stuff that I can do now with my computer in seconds. Back in those days, you had to cut type and paste it down and all that. That was quite menial work. 
After a year of that, I got an assistant art director job at my second agency, Kenyon & Eckhardt. I worked for Ron Deluca, a Senior Art Director who was an excellent mentor. He eventually became the chairman of the company. 

I gained a lot of good experience at K&E. But we were living in Connecticut in a tiny little house, and we had two young children, and I wanted to get out of the commuting routine and go back to Philadelphia. Ayer was the biggest agency there, and I was fortunate to get an offer. So we moved there at the end of 1968. That was the beginning of a very interesting and rewarding career. Over the years, I worked on some of the world’s most iconic brands: AT&T, Avon Products, Burger King, Club Med, DuPont… to name a few. My longest tenure on an account was ten years as Group Creative Director for DeBeers.

What an account that was. 
It was amazing. The DeBeers people were really terrific to work with. We met with them about every five weeks, mainly in London, but also in Bermuda, Canada, or Mexico. Even Japan and South Africa. It was hard work but also great fun. And it certainly was a long way from that little farmhouse in Pennsylvania!

Yes, and I bet that was a wonderful adventure. 
Yes, it was.

I spoke with your friend Tarquin the other day, which was very amusing. 
Tarquin de la Force is a former market director for DeBeers, author, poet, and good friend.

And he said to me that you and my dad were a creative dynamo responsible for some of De Beers’ most memorable advertising.
Well, he always had a way with words. 

I think that's quite a compliment.
It certainly was. 

And the DeBeers campaign was considered by many to be one of the most significant campaigns of the 20th century. 
It truly was. Your dad started working on the DeBeers account when he was in Paris with J. Walter Thompson. So he had a lot of experience, which was very helpful to me when I came on. He knew all of the DeBeers people and how things worked with them. And, of course, your dad was an immense talent.

N. W. Ayer was the first agency for De Beers. They started advertising in the U.S. in 1939. They chose Ayer because, at the time, it was the largest agency in the country. In the 1940s, they had famous artists, including Picasso, Dali, and Dufy, do illustrations for De Beers ads.

That really piqued my interest. I didn't know that until I saw my father's old slides, which I hadn't looked closely at, but Tarquin told me about this, and when I read about it, I discovered that Ayer was the first agency to integrate fine art into the ad campaigns, which was another pioneering feat. 
Absolutely. 

And they created the first art department. 
Plus, the theme line, “A Diamond Is Forever”, was written by a copywriter in 1947. I was only seven years old at that time, but when I eventually got to Ayer, she was still there. 

Yeah. I wanted to ask if you had met her?
Yes, I did. I worked with her. Her name was Frances Gerety. As she tells it, after working on the account for a few years, her creative supervisor assigned her the task of crafting a tagline that would unite diamonds with notions of love and permanence. After struggling late into the night, she eventually scribbled down four words that would become one of the most famous taglines in advertising history.

Incredible. Absolutely.
Yes.

What are your memories of her? 
She was considerably older than I was. But she was a very good copywriter who, in her free time, loved to play golf. She also enjoyed a martini or two on the terrace of the iconic Merion Golf Club where she was a member. In 1989, we organized a party in London to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the relationship between DeBeers and Ayer. It was a big event, and Frances came and spoke. She was a little frail, but she was terrific. Many of the guests had never met her, but they had certainly heard of her. She was wonderful. I'm glad I knew her. 

And when you were working on the campaign, did you feel that it was unique and special, or was it just another campaign like any other? 
I always felt that it was an honor to be the creative director for the De Beers account. It truly was unique and very special. Before I was assigned to it, there had only been five other creative directors in the history of the account. The head of De Beers' advertising department was Jeremy Pudney, and he inspired excellence. Every idea was measured by. “Is it up to Diamonds?” We all worked very hard to maintain the highest of standards.

He was happy with your work, I'm sure.
I had a great team. And Don, of course, was outstanding. We had different copywriters coming in and out, but Don was there for the longest time. Of course, working on something as beautiful as diamonds was an art director’s dream. 

What a wonderful, wonderful experience. And the memories you had with your colleagues and the friendships. Tarquin told me about a big event you organized in New York City for De Beers.
Yes. We organized a reunion of DeBeers and agency people on May 6, 2025, in New York. About 30 people attended. Many were in the New York area, but several came from London, California, Brazil, and four of us traveled up from Florida. It was a very successful reunion and a lot of fun!

I really appreciate your support of my project. 
It's great. I mean, you know, it's just amazing what Don had saved there. 

It's just the beginning. 
You found his list of names of famous people titled “For my memoir.”
That totally amused me, because he was the ultimate “Star-chaser.”

And you really have a lot of the background on these clues that I'm finding. So your insight and contribution mean a lot to me.  
Well, I don't mind doing it because he was such a good friend. And his stories are legendary. I mean, it's a shame he didn't actually write a memoir.

Yes, so we're left with a list. But some of the anecdotes you told me are so funny.
The David Lynch story! 

David Lynch, the Rolling Stones, and Peter Burke have a couple from Langan's Brasserie. Did you go there? 
Yes. I went there many times, but I was not there for Don’s encounter with O.J. Simpson. And I don't know what happened there. One thing about Don, he would tell these stories over and over. And at first I wasn't so sure about them. And then I found out they were all true. He was a great storyteller!

Yeah, he was a star chaser, right? He pushed for those encounters.
Definitely. As I said, I wasn't there for the O.J. Simpson thing, but apparently Don was leaving the restaurant at the same time as O.J. was being picked up by a Rolls-Royce. Don claims O.J. bumped into him with his Rolls. Personally, I think Don was leaning in and trying to chat him up. But, hey, you never know!

Don once spotted David Lynch in a restaurant in LA and “chatted him up”. By the time the evening was over, he had convinced David that they had gone to art school together, even though Don was eight years older than David Lynch and went to a completely different art school in Philadelphia, and they had never crossed paths!  But since Don knew everything there was to know about David Lynch, it was fairly easy for Don to convince him that they were old pals from their days of sketching cadavers in the morgue in Philadelphia! 

What a character. 
Yes, he was.

What are your memories of my dad? You first met in NYC, right? 
Yes. As I mentioned earlier, when they closed the Philadelphia office and sent us all to New York, I wasn't working on De Beers, but he was. He had come to Ayer, NY from Chicago. I would see him around, and we sort of knew one another, but we really became friends once I was on the account. And it was great fun. I mean, aside from his talent, which speaks for itself, as an art director and creative person, he was, you know, he was extremely bright. I’ve never seen him without a book on the train or on the airplane or wherever. He was a person who was interested in many things that I happened to also be interested in. 

Absolutely. 
He was a very good artist himself.  As was your mother. I love your mother's paintings. I think they are spectacular! 

Oh, thank you. I just had them shot by a professional in town. 
Good.

Yeah, so we can develop prints, and I can send them to family members.
They're great. 

So little by little, working through this legacy of art that they've left me. My dad didn't organize his things like you're doing with your book about your life and art- and that's wonderful. So what inspired you to do this book you're doing? 
What inspired me to do it was turning 85 years old!

It is so wonderful.
I decided that it was time to explain to my three children and eleven grandchildren how and why I spent my life in art and what I created along the way.

Incredible. 
I wanted to make a permanent record of what I did. Fortunately, I have photographs of almost everything. I also have photos of some works that I know I painted over, and I have no idea why. I have photographs of some paintings that I know are lost. I don't know where I lost them, or some kid has them someplace. But I wanted to put together a gallery in a box, if you will. It's now up to 325 pages, and there must be images of over 200 paintings in there, along with stories explaining why I did them. It’s a daunting process, and I have been working on it for about ten months. I make changes constantly.

You'll have to press publish one day. 
Pretty soon. I do have a very good printer here in Sarasota. He’s given me an estimate. But I still want to reach out to a few publishers to see if anyone might be interested in it. I don't know if they will. It's my story, and I'm an unknown artist. It's about an emerging artist who's been emerging for 85 years. 

I think it's wonderful and your participation in one of the most important campaigns of the 20th century!
I've had some people say that would be a plus when describing my career to anybody who might want to publish this book, because I do talk about it in the book.

It's massive.
Among other things, I have a spread where I'm explaining that I flew from New York to London on the Concorde with Princess Margaret. That came about because I was a British Airways frequent flyer. My company paid for a business class seat, but I would frequently get upgraded to first class. And on five occasions, I got upgraded to the Concorde. One day, Princess Margaret was on board. Flying with royalty from New York to London on the Concorde. Wow! That’s a great story!

Was she close to you on the plane?
No. The plane was all one class, 100 seats. There were probably 70 people on board. My seat was towards the back. She was up front. Once we got up to cruising at 50,000 feet at twice the speed of sound, I thought I should try to find her. I walked up the aisle and eventually spotted her sitting in an aisle seat, smoking cigarettes, drinking, and playing gin rummy with her seatmate. I just looked, she didn't even look up, and I went back to my seat. Now your father would still be sitting there talking to her!

I'm sure, leaning into the seat, right. 
He would be sitting right there. I know he would. Yeah, but that was great. 

What a wonderful life. 
That was fun. 

And where did you find your inspiration as a creative director? 
I started as an art director and became a creative director. I had worked on other accounts before De Beers. Ayer had the US Army recruiting account for many years, which was another big account, and I was creative director on that for a few years. Club Med, Avon, and The Bahamas were also among my other assignments before I moved to De Beers. 

So what went into the creation process? Where would you find your inspiration? 
For the De Beers account? 

Yes, in general.  
Well, you know, it's always a group effort. I mean, as creative director, I supervised a team of copywriters and art directors. DeBeers was, pardon the pun, a multi-faceted account in that there were different diamond products that we were selling. There were Diamonds for Men, the Diamond Engagement Ring, the Diamond Anniversary Ring, and so forth and so on. There were different directions that you could go with your with your assignments, and it was a collaborative thing. I mean, we had a really good team, and my role as creative director was to not only provide an environment for getting the most creative ideas, but also to make the major presentations when we would go to London.

Yeah, I think that was probably my dad's least favorite aspect. He never told me that, but I don't think he enjoyed the presentation part so much. 
Well, he was good at it. I was told by people who knew him in Paris that he was very good at presentations, and he himself admitted that. In later years, he was a little more, I wouldn't say nervous, but maybe a little bit, because the stakes were bigger. The account had gotten bigger. But he was very good when he was doing it. And he was a key player. He came to many of the meetings. He was very important to the account and the relationship with his knowledge of it, and his creativity. So, yes, if he wasn't as good as maybe some other people on their feet, he was certainly, you know, solving the problems and sealing the deal on the sidelines.

Yeah, what a big campaign with so much behind it, so much at stake. 
Yes, really. 

And a success for NW Ayer.
Well, it was until they lost the account. About six months after I left the agency, DeBeers moved the account from Ayer to J. Walter Thompson in New York. JWT had the account in virtually every other market in the world. Ayer had it in the U.S. since 1939. DeBeers had become unhappy with the way Ayer was managing the business. They did invite some of the Ayer people to go to JWT, including your father. And he went. But Ayer had hired a new creative director who liked Don, and he offered him a big salary increase to come back. So he went back. Sadly, a few months later, that guy was fired. Don told me the greatest mistake he ever made was leaving JWT to go back to Ayer, because Ayer was just crumbling at that point.

So you started painting in 2007? 
Painting full-time in 2007. But actually, as far back as PMCA, I spent more time painting and drawing than I did in the Graphic Design aspect of things. Towards the end of my final year there, there was a prestigious painting prize given to the best painter in the senior class. A friend won it. He told me that I was rumored to be in the running for the prize, but he got the award for the best painter because he had chosen Fine Arts as his major, as opposed to Advertising Design. And I can understand that. He had chosen fine arts, and he was going on to Yale. He deserved it.
 
I didn't start painting full-time until I left the business world. I started taking classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and at local art centers.

That was after advertising? 
Yes, after advertising. Around 2007 or 2008, thereabouts. I started taking courses and doing a lot of painting on my own, and getting into shows and things, which has been fairly rewarding. During COVID, I started submitting work to online shows. One of my huge paintings won best in show. That was a surprise to me, but it was quite an honor. 

Yeah, I saw some of your beautiful work, and you've been rewarded along the way. 
Yeah, it's worked out, but I'm not on any top galleries' lists yet. You have to find your own pace, and I have some very good friends who have been collectors: Peter Burke and his wife have eight of my paintings of various sizes in their house down here. Other friends have six; some are in Brazil, some are in the UK, and one is in Seoul, Korea. My work has been exhibited in Miami, New York City, Palm Beach, Paris, Princeton, and Philadelphia, and is in many private collections.

Wonderful. Your art has been described as lyrical, symbolic, and full of joyous color. 
Yes. Thank you.

Indeed. Incredible. And your artwork that's on fashion, I'm very intrigued. I would love to find out how I can get a pair of those beautiful Vans sneakers. I want to wear them around France and get you some clients because they're so beautiful. 
Yes, I had created a series of sunset designs that I put on the sneakers and various other items. I'm exploring resources that may be interested producing more of those.

So do you paint as much as you'd like every day? 
Normally, yes. But for the last ten months, my creativity has been devoted to my book project. There are many paintings in my studio waiting for attention, and I am inspired by all of the amazing artists whom I follow on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. 

Wonderful. 
Yes, really. I have a lot of ideas, and I have some large untouched canvases out there.

Do you always work on large-scale canvases? 
It varies. 48”x60” is the largest. Sometimes I put two or three of those together as diptychs or triptychs. But I also have many paintings that are 24”x 24”, 36”x 36”, and 48”x 36”.

Well, the ideas are brewing - that's great. And you're inspired by all sorts of things, from nature to cityscapes?
Yes. I'm as interested in the gritty textures of the city as I am in the calming beauty of nature. Here in South Florida, I find the tropical colors, foliage, and weather very inspiring. I have recently updated my website. I try to do that as often as I have new work to show.

Yes, step by step. Well, this has been great. Thank you for taking the time.

Find out more about Jeff and his artwork here: www.jeffreyodiorne.com 

How did De Beers capture the market through its advertising? 
It was a two-prong approach. There was on-the-day advertising, which is basically the responsibility of the jeweler, using De Beers material, which is 'buy this today because', and then there was image advertising, which is the responsibility of De Beers, which is ‘ buy a diamond because’- it’s the ‘ultimate gift of love, it’s the meaning of romance, etc…’ ‘says more than words ever can.’

You had to be very romantic?
Yes. So, De Beers’ advertising was essential because in the hierarchy of need, the more people hear about you, the higher you are on the hierarchy of need. So, De Beers was basically at the very top for many years in terms of luxury goods because the advertising was constantly there, telling consumers that they needed the diamond as the ultimate symbol of love and seal on their relationship; that a diamond was the only meaningful way to mark, to celebrate, the key ‘rights of passage’ in the consumer’s life. And then when it stopped, of course, we have a situation today, where I don’t think diamonds are regarded as anything like as popular as they used to be. I mean, things like sapphires and other precious stones have jumped up the ladder of desirability. I’m convinced, and that’s only me, that it’s because De Beers no longer has impactful and emotionally seductive image advertising.