Hey y'all, back in April, Wayne offered his sign magazines (except his SignCrafts) and someone else also recently mentioned not bein' ready to part with their SC's either . . .
SO - I thought I would share my process as an idea for your mags.
It all really started Mother's Day weekend.
I really wanted to go thru a ton of boxes stored in my 'attic' space, (which is the space above the paint room in my shop)
My daughters asked what I wanted for Mother's day & what I really wanted was to go thru STUFF - stuff I piled up there when I bought my house & shop 16 years ago, and additional stuff I piled up there after my parents died between 2001-2003.
The real problem was both my daughters starting to suspect, well, accuse me - of being a hoarder ... like maybe they were gonna sign me up for that TV show or somethin' . . .
I constantly have to defend myself - NO - I can-NOT toss THAT - THESE - OR THOSE - THOSE are art projects I'm going to do someday - THAT'S a keeper! - THIS is STILL good! . . .
MOM! Do you REALLY need . . .
YES! YES! YES!
But I actually DID want to declutter & organize, AND as both girls soon discovered - most of the boxes were THEIR things from childhood, high school, a previous marriage, and memorabilia I thought they might want (and they of course, DID ) from their grandparents.
We had a GREAT weekend together pulling down dusty box after box discovering & rediscovering things.
We hauled off one truck-load to the dump and one huge truck-load stacked high to the donation box.
We burned old, empty boxes, and we had a YaYa-Sisterhood moment where we burned a wedding dress & a flower-girl dress, and old pictures, and played guitars and sang around a fire 'til the wee hours.
My daughters seemed amazed by the amount of stuff I was easily willing to part with, and just as amazed at what I refused to discard . ..
One particular subject of casual disagreement; my boxes of Sign-Craft mags from 1986 thru 2008, and several random issues since. I only have Sign Crafts - and a scant few Signs of the Times & Artists mags.
SO - after all the dust settled - literally, these boxes of mags have been sitting around my shop stacked up since that weekend - the boxes make a perfect table-base after a piece of plywood was conveniently thrown on there . . . til it got covered in paperwork, rolls of tape, a jug of mineral spirits, a tape measure, a hammer, a couple of screwdrivers, vinyl scraps, etc, etc, etc...
ANY-way . . .
in spite of being slammed with work I should be doing, I finally decided to start attacking these magazines and I have said ALL that to tell you this -
I simply grabbed a couple of the boxes and started opening each magazine and what ever I want to keep I cut it out!
This part of the process will take me at least 6 or 7 more evenings . . . but that's ok.
I'm simply going to make a couple of scrap books with a special section for each thing:
-Articles I really liked -Pics of signs I really love -Alphabets I love -My favourite Parsons & Paintbucket cartoons.
I also saved articles for clients: one for a business owner about how to get 50% down. I saved another one on restoring an antique fire truck for the chief of a Volunteer fire dept. I do work for because he will love the story & pictures. Share some stuff!
SO far, of the 20 or so mags I went thru, I cut-&-tossed all but 3 I kept for reasons as follows:
- July/August '87 features 'Women in the Sign Industry' one year before I became self-employeed.
- Sept/Oct '89 shows a lot of old sign guys who started in the 30's and were still going in '89. I'm sure these guys are gone on now, but what a legacy. Many issues feature a veteran sign person and I've also saved, & will save some of those individual articles.
As I went thru clipping & dating things, I got to see David & Susie Butler again in the May/June '89 issue shown with their shop dog Bruna, and of course, David's stunning work, and back then, never knowing I would be fortunate enough to meet them someday in 2005 in Greece of all places.
I got to see Mr.Raymond . . . Raymond Chapman in the Mar/April '86 issue along with pics of his great sign talent, long before I ever had the priviledge of 'meeting' him here in Letterville years later.
I also saved the May/June 1990 issue. Because it features Steve & Barb, and also a picture of me & my daughter with my comment on juggling kids & sign-biz, along with other sign mom contributors.
Who knew 13 years later I would eventually own a computer & discover Letterville, and the following year I would get to meet Steve & Barb in person in Laurens, SC! (2004) where Steve signed my signature-panel in his awesome script 'Steve & Barb Shortreed' which I still display in my office . . .
But these magazines have all got stored away - after I exhausted myself reading them thru 2 or 3 or 4 times, anticipating the next issue, Each previous issue stored away - issue after issue - year after year . . . for all these years, until now.
This trip down memory lane has been almost as much fun as going to a meet!
Now I can't wait to go thru the rest my magazines!! and see who all else I will discover & rediscover, and marvel again over the pics and stories and valuable info, not to mention laughing out loud at Parsons, and all.
Ultimately, I will be condensing several years of magazines into a couple of thick, 3-ring binder notebooks -
I'll be using the transparent 'pocket' sheet protectors.
Whole page articles will slip in these.
I issue-date each item I save, as well as add names (on sign photos, etc)
The smaller cut things like pics, cartoons, etc, will be attached to colourful cardstock and then placed in sheet-protectors.
Then, all organized accordingly!
So, maybe this is somethin' you might like to do with your mags!!
(edited for perfectionistic-OCD tendecies in punctuation, spelling, & some grammar)
[ June 24, 2016, 04:30 AM: Message edited by: Sheila Ferrell ]
Posted by Ian Stewart-Koster (Member # 3500) on :
Thanks for the tale, Sheila! Great ideas, but I can't bear to cut up my old Signcrafts! Letterville and all the characters, and reading about them in Signcraft, and meeting many at meets -isn't it a wonderful trade we're all in!
[ June 24, 2016, 07:15 AM: Message edited by: Ian Stewart-Koster ]
Posted by Wayne Webb (Member # 1124) on :
Good ideas Sheiler. I still have all those mags stacked in boxes on hand truck BTW. When I get done with a couple of ongoing projects I will chunk 'em.
Posted by Dale Feicke (Member # 767) on :
Those are some good ideas, Sheila.You know, they say that great minds run along the same track....
Well, in spite of that.....I've done a lot of looking, sorting and cutting out, not only of SignCraft, but many hotrod and street rod books, I've had piling up for a good many years.
I've got a younger buddy that takes all the car magazines I bundle up; and the old sign magazines have/are going to the recycler. I quit getting Signs of the Times, awhile ago; since they are mostly digital, electronic and ADS, ADS....but I still had a good pile of them to get rid of.
I like the Signcrafts best; but after I've gotten the information I want or need.....why keep them? And they're specialized to a small audience, so it's not like you can go across the street, and give them to the old lady over there......
Posted by Sheila Ferrell (Member # 3741) on :
Another reason for the scrap-book -
When I'm too old to paint - and eventually pass away - my daughters will just chunk a bunch of sign magazines.
But if I create a scrap-book of certain things from those same magazines, things that really speak to me personally, or the things that I identify with 100% - espcially those cartoons - my daughters will keep that scrap-book and as they look thru it they will be able to laugh and re-live sign-shop life and share it with their kids.
I wish my parents has kept a personal book of pictures and stories about things they did in their life . . .
Most of us only see our parents in a time-line of our own memories - never really knowing who they were or what they were like before we were born, or even when we were little kids - too little to be cognizant of our parents ideas, dreams, beliefs and more importantly their changes and growth.
We typically get to really know our parents in our early teens - when we are starting to observe and decide our own opinions - and often - as we grow up and move on, we retain those images & ideas of who they were and still are.
But we have all evolved and changed!
Our parents tell us stories of their childhood and early adulthood - but there's a disconnect between that and who we actually saw as we grew up.
I just think it's important for our kids and grandkids to be connected - and even more so because of what WE do as sign painters.
This skill is fading away y'all. Technology is ever replacing everything.
I saw a digital-print on a BRICK wall in an airport recently. It was a perfect sign-mural adverisment - not hand painted on the wall. It was laminated on that wall.
I never thought that could be done.
But it can.
And what's next?
It's important to leave a little of ourselves and our lives to be connected to our kids & grandkids long after we"re gone.
[ June 25, 2016, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: Sheila Ferrell ]
Posted by Rusty Bradley (Member # 6938) on :
When we die...and all those who knew us have also died...we will cease being a memory in anyone's mind...we now become that funny picture of the dead relative in the family album being viewed by someone who never knew us......I know that's a depressing thought...but on the other hand...WE AINT DEAD YET !.
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. . .![[For Your Information]](graemlins/fyi.gif)
- THIS is STILL good! . . . ![[Bash]](graemlins/bash.gif)
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& my daughter with my comment on juggling kids & sign-biz, along with other sign mom contributors.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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