A week of signs and portents of things to come

A week spent painting signs

I spent the week in a creative trance, listening to NPR’s fundraising week and painting, painting and painting in my studio. Here it is

I became a man obsessed with painting political signs. When I see people on the street waving signs I am encouraged. It’s a war of presence and bling. My yard is filled with signs, banners and flags as if it’s Christmas time. I should string red white and blue Christmas lights in the yard and put my Uncle Sam hat on our inflatable snowman.

At first I made videos of myself making signs for posts. Then editing the videos slowed me down. I just wanted to paint. Like a mad man.

Here are my first attempts.These are from a few weeks ago.

Nine signs

I’ve become obsessed.

And I learned about paintbrushes. I have 40 but I only really use two of them. I like short handled brushes. Easier for me to control. The good ones feel like magic pens.

An angled brush tip makes for agile calligraphic effects. A good brush will hold the wet paint beautifully. I like the feel when it glides onto the surface of the poster board. Ask Alexa to play Beyonce’s Freedom on a loop and I can lose track of time.

18 signs

I paint five signs a day. Or more. I look forward to waving them at citizens driving by. We’ll have to wave them around on some street corners come October.

I’ve never seen grassroots enthusiasm like this. My circle of friends have begun to dare to do something they haven’t done in years: hope.

Signs are popping up. Bumper stickers.

The days got away from me as I painted more signs. “What day is it?” I’d ask the cat sleeping in front of my studio window. Today is always a good day to buy more poster boards and paint. By the way, later in the day my Cat Ladies for Kamala poster got an approving nod from my smug liberal feline.

I have not painted signs since I was kid. I took every freelance art related job I could get, including painting signs. I drew drop in cartoons for a Tucson city magazine in the seventies. I did T-shirt designs for the KTKT Crazy Man’s T-shirt shop. I did silkscreens. I drew for the Frumious Bandersnatch. I designed billboard art for Tucson Realty.

During the freelance years here in Tucson I was a happy hippie improper pauper artist with a wife and rent to pay. I sold art supplies. I taught summer art classes. I painted celebrity murals in movie theater lobbies and celebrity murals in delis that were eventually demolished. I hand sketched a mural of male Gods in charcoal on the back wall of a gym. It was elegant. In my early twenties I painted the first “Gaslight Theatre” logo sign on the barn facing Tanque Verde road at Trail Dust Town. I got good at western style lettering with that Hee Haw Rodeo Tombstone Epitaph flavor. Then I came to like freehand lettering. I copied the sweeping signatures of the signers of the Constitution.

Because of the image galleries on this post I’m at the end of my permissible email length so I’ll continue on the next post.

Happy Sunday, dear friend.

You know she’s going to kick his ass and win this thing.