Once the world of signwriting opened up to me, my eyes filled with wonder. I would be using my artistic skill(about all the skill I had I would be outdoors, not stuck in the same spot every day, suited me just fine.

Unfortunately, I really dont think my Boss wanted another writer, he needed someone as a Gopher....You know....Go for this , Go for that, clean up, coat out.....etc etc.

I really wanted to learn, so I began to practice, lunch times, after work, come in early, at home.I really wanted my Boss to teach me but he was overwhelmed with the pressure of running the business (I understand that now)
So he was reluctant to take any time for me, I badgered him constantly and eventually became very disalusioned, more or less gave up I guess.

The upshot was, I was fired before I made it into my third year, I was told as I left that I would never be a writer, that I just didn't have what it takes....whatever the hell that is!
So I began to just paint houses for a living.

But I met up with a signwriter who had worked at the old sign shop for a time, he took me under his wing, took a little time with me, showed me a few basics, and gave me an opportunity to actually create some signs.

The defining moment for me was when he returned from town one day, looked at what I had written and said, " Your old Boss doesn't know what he is talking about, you have what it takes, you are going to make a great writer"
Well, that was it, I got the fire back.

I began to take on jobs as I travelled around on my motorbike, I would roll into a town, approach places that needed work and I would tell them that if they didn't like it, all it would cost them would be the paint and scaffold. Plenty of people would give me a go, I always got paid, (I had to or I would starve, no greater incentive) even if I had to re-do the job a couple of times.

So, thats a brief synopsis of my jouney, I look forward to thanking that writer for his encouragement because thats all it took to set me on a course for life.

Thanks Mel Kemp, wherever the hell you are.

I started doing Christmas window splashes. I was too young to drive and so had to hitch hike into town to work. My kit was a cardboard box.

As no one else in town was doing this kind of work, I was self taught. And I learned through many mistakes.

I remember one merchant who bought a window. As I remember it I charged him a hundred bucks. A fortune in those days. He was happy as a clam, until I finished solo, two hours later. When I went to give him my bill, he wanted to bargain. He thought it not right that a little snotty nose kid was able to make that kind of money.

I pressed him on his satisfaction. He stated he was happy with the job, but no longer was happy with the price. I asked him for a wet rag. And then pressed it to the windo. I told him I would cut the price in half, but he would only get half a windo for that price.

He paid and I learned my first lesson in economics. Gutsy move for a little kid, but the only one I could think of. Most important is it worked. And he became a repeat customer, who didn't try that again.

Later I tried to get on with another sgn shop. But the owner didn't like me as I was cutting into his business. He offered me a pittance for a wage. I stayed on my own and learned the hard way at two or three times the wage he offered me.

I lived way out in the boonies, in a small town. I had no idea of the right materials and supplies. THere were no trade magazines that I knew of way back then,

But I survived... and learned. And had fun through the whole process.

Being self taught, I suppose one lesson I missed was what can't be done. And I haven't found anything in that category so far.

Now, many years later, I have heard from some of my old time competition. They have read of my adventures in the trade magazines. Kinda funny how times change.

Hmmm....

What was it like when I started out? Scary yet exhilarating. Like joey said... "What a long strange trip it's been".

I started working in a sign shop when I was 17 years old. My girlfriend at the time parent's best friends owned a sign company in Tonawanda. Jimmy saw the sign I had made for Pam and told her to tell me to come down and get a job. Sheesh... I thought it was a joke. It wasn't.

I still remember my first day. I spent a better part of the morning double coating white lettering on a red backgrouned sign. I sure wish I could remember what the sign said...

I remember going home after the first day and telling my Mom that I knew what I wanted to for a living for the rest of my life.

The late Paul Henley had just opened a sign shop and was doing all kind of hand lettering, as well as cutting styrofoam letters for production. I had to beg for a job, and he finally took me on as an apprentice. His dad had been a sign guy, so he did everything the "ol fashioned way". He had me work every day on hand lettering and such. once I figured out there was a method to the madness, sign painting was pretty cool. I started college and Paul gave me a book on gold-leafing and told me to come back the next summer, he would spend the entire time on teaching me the almost lost art of gold-leafing. unfortunatly, he past away over christmas. A few years later, my dad surpised me with a truck load of sign equipment and such. They had auctioned off all of Paul's sign shop, and my dad was able to get most of his books, papers, an electric pounce machine, etc.
In college, I was able to work for "Great American Sign Shop". I started as the gopher, sweeping floors. Chris Beam was great to work for, he let me ask a million questions, and kept promoting my duties. I learned how to mix colors, take care of brushes, all the general day-to-day stuff. He promoted me to painting billboards in-house. The more I learned, the more challenging the jobs got. It was great.
While I was in college, I was freelancing art everywhere and everything I could. That led to a job at a screenprinting shop. I learned everything I could about T-shirt printing and I was the Art Director there for 9 years.
Over that period I was still doing a few signs and banners on the side.

Following our communal lifestyle, in the late 60's, Megan and I lived in a '55 Chevy 1 ton walk in van. I had been doing some posters for Haight Street events, but hadn't thought seriously about doing signs since 4th grade.

A friend handed me a 1/4 pt can of 1-Shot Dark Blue and this strange looking flat brush with short hairs and told me it was a signman's truck lettering tool. I lettered our truck. I had no business to advertise, but wanted to say something to the world on that truck. I did a typical freeform letterstyle like on the Filmore posters, and wrote "The grass whithers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever." We enjoyed this bold statement from the prophet Isiah, and weren't dissappointed that the world didn't line up for truck lettering.

I tried to get a job at a few sign shops with this demonstration of skill and power that I drove in on, but was quickly shown the door.

I lettered long wooden fences and corrugated rusty walls and some of the crappiest looking things imaginable for wrecking yards in trade for old Chevy truck parts. I lettered some auto parts walls and started picking up some of the crap work that none of the real signshops would ever want to be seen touching.

I got into a business doing carved signs with a friend. He had the art school background and could sell easily. We were doing signs for Balboa Island tourist shops. We didn't know about chisels, but knew how to sharpen screwdrivers. We discovered rub on letters and opaque projectors for making patterns. There is still one of these signs up and the letters at the left end lean left at the top and the opposite way on the other end of the sign from lens distortion.

After hanging around a legitimate sign shop as much as I could, finding a place to sit quietly for an hour or two at a time and watching, they finally gave me a broom and let me do some janitorial chores. This led to helping with lumber yard runs and helping on some wall work and eventually into an apprenticeship.

I remember Johnny, the boss there, telling me "I wish I could buy your time for what I think it's worth and sell it for what you think it's worth."
I was soon getting 50% of the selling price of a sign I could do less the material expenses.

I got to work with some great mechanics. I also got to work with some of those old drunks that could consistantly turn out sellable crap.

I went to a few different shops getting night and weekend jobs that gave me even more exposure to great training.

Walter Methner was getting going with his Newport Beach shop that soon became one of the more famous shops of our generation. Manual Alvarado, his prime designer, also moonlighted and hired me to work with him evenings.

Hal Benedict hired me to help him on Saturdays.

Soon there was doing sub work for Knott's Berry Farm and some for Disney, and that led to some legit studio work.

All this time though, I was still working for Johnny, who was teaching me like I was his son, how to letter and sell and keep books and schmooze with the city hall folks.

man was i hooked!

i worked for him until i graduated high school and started my own little sign shop.

i played in a rock and roll band but did'nt stray to far from sign painting.
our band would play a bar and i would end up getting sign jobs.

Anyone noticed a recurring point that comes through these posts...... We have all been given this gift by someone else, almost without exception there has been someone who has touched our lives and passed these skills on to us.

The cycle of life.........

Fascinating stuff

Thank you so much for starting this thread! I hadn't been here in a while and it was a pleasant surprise to see these wonderful stories!

I was 14, and doing everything I could do, artistically, to make the world a less sucky place hehehe!

At age 14, I was bored with calligraphy and so I began lettering car doors for the kids I knew from school. Apparently I did something right, as I was soon lettering fleet trucks for their fathers. I found a sign shop downtown that would pay me $35 per week to show up, do a little grunt work and have a place to practice different letterstyles. That covered my bus fare so I could learn from somebody who had an actual shop devoted to something that paid real money!

I eventually got hungry and my thirst for knowledge grew as well. Within a few months, I was lettering along side the big boys and having the time of my life as i strove to meet another goal everyday.

I saw some potential in this whole sign gig, and weighed out the matter. Hang with my mom, or hit the big city (get an apt.) and save on bus fare.

I know we've all heard the term "real job" when being compared to someone with a steady salary...but, I can't think of anything I would rather do, than to live out of the palm of God's hand, and have the capability to run circles around these other folks at the bank. (Not to make fun of them, just making several deposits a day will seem like yer foot is nailed to the floor.)

It wasn't long before I could wait till the end of the week and make one big deposit and not have to worry about being over extended if I did.

To me, a real job, is something I enjoy doing so much, that family members have to pry my tools from my hand at night, and nobody can take the smile off my face.

Being so happy and confident about my place in life is like, the bomb! The hours are great and the freedom, of creating my own universe is unmatched in any other setting, for instance, one that includes pickles, or negative people I don't want to work with.

Lately I've been building, in hopes "they" would come. Still waiting. I've been more vertical recently, but still have to get rid of some clutter, a few more boxes to unpack. I've been wrastling with discouragement lately and reading this thread...taught me to appreciate all that I've been through over the years, and the work I've managed to accomplish the past few years to keep from chucking it all in. If I don't appreciate it, how is anyone else supposed to?

Getting in touch with all the excitement I felt back then, is exhilarating! It couldn't have come at a better time!

Thank you all for taking the time to share your stories! And Rob, again, for re-installing the passion I almost forgot about.

My dad bought me my first airbrush when I was 10 years old which I used for painting model cars and rockets.
Up through the 6th grade I was involved in the school's "orchestra". I played piano, cello, violin, flute, clarinet, woodwind recorder and a few other instruments along the way, basically a different one every year.
I also sang in the school choir.

When I got into highschool (in my school that was 7th-12th grades) I kept up with the art.. sculpture, ceramics, painting, airbrushing, drawing.. but I also started really getting into math and engineering..

I then ended up going to college for engineering, but I still kept up with the more artistic things.
I got into 3D Modeling and animation, photoshop, and web design too.

I got an engineering job, and at this point I'd been into jetskis a couple years already.

One day I got a wild hair to run to the Dick Blick art store and pick up some of that holographic vinyl, and I went home, grabbed my X-acto knife and proceded to hand-cut my own graphics for the jetski - at this point I didnt even have any knowledge there was a machine that could do this work for me.

I was happy with the result and wanted to make more graphics and one day I was getting ready to head back out to dick blick for more vinyl. I told my mom where I was going and what I was going to make and she says "You know, it would be really cool if there was a machine that could cut that vinyl."

Ding! A light turned on. That night I went online and started searching for such machines.. and I found 'em.

My first cutter was a Roland STIKA PLus (12" model).. woohoo..

All of a sudden I had vinyl scraps flying everywhere.. making my own jetski graphics, paint masks for models and my radio controlled cars, decals for friends.

One day a buddy says "Mike, howcome you arent making decals and selling them man??" I had never thought of that, I was happy with the engineering gig.

So, I decided to make a business out of it but I wasnt ready to quit the engineering deal.

Stickerpimp.com was born - Engineer by day, stickerpimp by night.

I started off selling the obvious - peeing kids, "Powered by Honda", and an assortment of the other lame-o little crap.

It wasn't long before I realized there HAD to be a way to actually make money without having to sell 5,000 stupid little decals a week..

Dusted off the airbrush and abandoned Calvin permanently.

Now, vehicle graphics make up 90% of my work and 99% of the jobs come from my website, and sales are pretty strong.

I showed him a model race car I had built and lettered and he seemed impressed, cause he threw the brush down and walked away mumbling something about "smart ass street urchins." Well.... letter him a sign I did. As I think back now, it really looked like crap, but he seemed to like it enough to give me five-bucks. I knew right then what I wanted to do for a living.