Taken from his Artist's Statement:

"Drawing at an early age seemed to come naturally to Bev Bevilacqua. Fortunately he was encoraged by his family and teachers to continue in the arts. Born in the coastal town of Milford, Connecticut in 1927, he joined the Navy after high school and served on a destroyer in the Pacific during WWII.

After the war, he attended the Philadelphia Museum School of art under the GI Bill. Graduating in 1951 he joined the Industrial Design firm of Henry Dreyfus in New York City. He then joined and became a Partner with the firm of Eliot Noyes and associates, Architecture and Industrial design in New canaan, Connecticut. His own firm BMA Industrial Design was formed in 1977 and he retired in 1997.

Bev received numerous design and mechanical patents during his 48 years in the practice of Industrial Design. Two products of his design, the IBM Selectric typewriter and the round Mobil gasoline pump, received numerous design awards. In addition, his design for the Cummins marien diesel engine is in the Smithsonian collection.

Since retiring he has resumed painting and especially enjoys producing watercolors of local unique Maine architecture and other favorite and familiar scenery around his summer home on the coast, in the village of Popham Beach. He also teaches courses at the Mid-Coast senior College in Bath. Recently, the Maine State Arts Commission selected two of his paintings for exhibit in the lobby of the Capitol building in Augusta."

Bev worked with the group, The Virginia Project, Inc. spending 18 months on research looking into the design of the vessels of the time of the one built in 1607-1608 by the Popham colony and it is from that research that he provided us with the rendition of the Virginia featured in our logo. A book detailing his research entitled, " The Pinnace Virginia Design Investigation", was prepared for the Virginia Project Inc. by Bev Bevlacqua.

In the introduction he states his "...responsibility has been the preliminary research and design for the Virginia." The publication lists a great number of resources and outlines the various threads of exploration used in his research. There is a very interesting set of renderings of vessels, details of their methods of construction, and the sailing rigs in use at the time of the Popham Colony. The resultant speculations are the most likely of design aspects incorporated into the building of the Virginia by the colonists. Much of this reseach has been used to formulate plans for the reproduction of a fully usable Virginia. Maine's First Ship is currently trying to turn that dream into reality.

Copies of this work can be seen at the Popham library, as can some of Bev's artistic works as part of the Popham Art Gallery at the Library.