Once upon a time, there were mythical figures called Drunken Sign Painters. They carried their paints and brushes in shopping bags or bushel baskets, traveling from store to store, tavern to tavern. Their hands were shaky, but once they picked up a brush their hands weren’t shaky at all. They painted for spending cash, just enough for their next beer or next meal. Every small town and every neighborhood, the myth goes, had a Drunken Sign Painter, and everyone had their theories as to why these painters were drunken: the fumes got them so high they needed liquor to bring them down; they drank to get the taste of paint out of their mouths; they had planned to become fine artists, Great American Painters, but instead found themselves lettering grocery store windows–so they drank.
Atkinson’s school burned down in the 1920s, and he took to wandering, from Indiana to Iowa and back to Chicago again. He died broke in 1955. At the time he was working for Perkins Sign Shop, a small though respected outfit in Jackson, Missisippi.
In order to keep up with their science and their art, many sign painters subscribe to Signs of the Times magazine, which has been around since the turn of the century, and to a newer publication, SignCraft, which provides bimonthly hints and advice on such topics as boat lettering, choosing paints and typestyles, and tapping into emerging markets, like churches. “Church growth experts all agree that a visible, clean attractive sign is the first image made upon church visitors,” said a recent article. “It’s like the combat patch worn on the sleeve of soldiers.” A new publication called A Magazine About Letterheads is tracing the revival of the sign-painting arts and features designs by contemporary sign painters as well as tributes to the masters like Atkinson and Ohnimus. David Butler, who founded the magazine, is a sign painter in Indiana. “It’s important that sign painters see themselves as artists,” he says. “I know a lot of Letterheads who are super fine artists who found themselves in the sign trade because they had to make a living. It’s something they can do, they can make money at it, and it halfway satisfies the artist in them. It doesn’t totally satisfy them, but it’s something.”
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Stevens is a fully trained painter; he went through a union apprenticeship. But like anyone who wants to make a good living in the sign business these days, he has a number of other skills. He makes signs out of molded plastic, sandblasted wood, and sculpted polystyrene. More importantly, he uses computers, which in the last ten years have gradually taken over the business. With a layout program like CorelDraw, a plotter, and a sheet of vinyl, a sign maker can access thousands of typestyles and create intricately designed vinyl signs in a fraction of the time that it would have taken to letter by hand. “If you’d have told me 15 years ago that I’d be designing signs and lettering with a computer, I’d say you’re nuts,” Stevens says. “But we’ve just come so far.” Despite his relatively new dependence on computers, though, Mike Stevens is still a dedicated Letterhead. He’s come up with many sayings to prove his loyalty to the craft: “A business with no sign is a sign of no business” or “Good sign painters know all the strokes.” There’s an enormous sign in his shop, hand-painted, that depicts Mickey Mouse holding a paintbrush. “Remember,” it reads, “only you can prevent ugly signs.”
“You’d be surprised how many people call us for hand lettering,” Stevens says. “Hand painting. Perfect example: I had a woman, she had a ’67 Cougar. She had it all redone yellow and she wanted it striped. I said, ‘It’ll be $35 for two vinyl stripes.’ She said, ‘No, I want it painted.’ That’s $140. But she wanted the paint. Ark Disposal Company, we do two golf outings for him a year, and he wants all the signs hand painted. We put vinyl on his trucks, vinyl on his windows, but he wants his golf signs hand painted. With painted bears and everything. He wants that look.”
“The old-timers where I used to work, when they had an apprentice, they’d take all the want ads out of the newspaper,” Janowiak says. “I used to watch ’em all day long, copying letters out of the want ads.”
“It looks professional,” Stevens says, “but that’s because I’m a sign painter.”
