When Steve Fisher, a vendor at the Saturday Hingham Farmers Market, was laid off from his job last May, he turned the challenge into a victory.

Instead of wallowing in self-pity, Fisher and his wife, Jill, grabbed onto the opportunity of turning his artistic abilities and love for fishing and her marketing skills into a new business, “Red White & Bluefish.”

Steve’s technique is to apply textile paint to a recently caught fish and then place a T-shirt on top of the fish and rub it. Their product line features brightly colored, highly detailed hand-printed apparel and accessories imprinted with fish, lobsters, crabs, and shells through a unique “fish printing” process. Their success is a classic example of the saying, “When one door closes, another opens.”

Steve had been in the sign and graphics business for more than 30 years when he lost his job. Jill currently works in the marketing department of a nationwide mortgage lender. In her free time, she organizes the family business, orders supplies, schedules markets, and does some of the printing.

Extracted from an article and photo by By Carol Britton Meyer, GateHouse News Service & WickedLocal.com