The folks in that video are in it for the love of the craft, period. Just like why so many of us are in our "craft". Is there really any other reason to do what we do?
Yep, that's my sig. line in a nutshell. Hard to explain why one would choose to take the hard road to get to something that most would consider inferior. But, that's just the way some of us are. Nice video, thanks.
I can really relate to this finely done movie, as this was my life from 1960 to 1980 before I got to old to climb. If you are old enough to remember the 18th super bowl, I did the walls inside the Old Sombrero stadium in Tampa Florida and many others for Tampa Outdoor Graphics. Old sign men, and painters, will relate to the guy pulling the ropes on the swing stage. You were literally pulling up your own weight plus half the weight of the stage. If you let go of that rope, you, the stage, and your partner would fall to your doom. You had to know how to "Tie Off" to secure your side so your partner could pull his side up. Both men loose at the same time was a no-no. Thanks again for the movie, it was very well done compared to most.
My dad was a stone mason. I helped him as a kid but then served a 5 year apprenticeship and went into custom woodworking. When the guy's in the film were describing how their boss would be constantly teaching them the trade, talking to them and making sure that he wasn't wasting his breath, I chuckled with a tear in my eye. After 45 years I have returned to my roots. Thanks dad.
Great film.Everbody says that there are no skilled craftsmen [and women]any more but I think you just have to search them out.And when you find them support them by useing there services.
Great piece Ryan! Loved the flick and i too have always been fond of hands on work and a paint brush. This too... has happened it the skateboarding world when it comes to art graphics on sk8 decks, it's all laminated/heat pressed onto the skate decks, not much is actually screen printed with paint and by hand anymore I sure miss that look and looking at the texture of the paint overlapping the others. perhaps this lost art is happening ever where now because of how cost efficient and the time it takes to get things done faster. ...but there will always be the ones that keep their heart and soul in certain passions and that's what makes traditional hot rodding so awesome, cause i can see it the art, the cars and the passion for those who still care thanks for sharing this and it touches home... even in the skate world. cheers, cab
I about shit my pants when I saw this thread,Ryan! Cause my good friend Craig,CW's40TPU,did this for years and it's a dying trade. When I saw that he had commented on this thread,I had hoped he would post some pic's of his work. He's an amazing artist!!! He's also the same guy who did the Old Crow logo on Lucky's and my truck. I'm honored that Bobby and Lucky allowed me to do this and Craig is the ONLY guy I would have do it! We've been friends for 40+ years...He doesn't get the recognition he deserves,IMO.
Same here Bob, seen it this morning at work with no sound but I knew I had to forward it to Craig. Im sure if I didn't catch it you would have mention it to CW. CW PM'd me around 9:30 am to say he did not see it on the board and that it was great. I just watched it again know with sound and it was even better. Thanks Ryan for getting freinds together with this one.
What a great film! It really has a lot to say about why we do what we do--and why we need to keep doing it. I can't help but think that if more Americans could see the value in vocations like sign painters--and if fewer wanted to hit the lottery and get rich quick--then not only would more of us have jobs right now, but the country would be in better shape too. It's weird--the whole country has ALWAYS had this get-rich-quick mentality, and it helped fuel our rise for so long. But the sign painters, and the folks who saw the value in what they did--and not just in a fat paycheck--were always the ones who sustained the nation. Now that everyone wants to strike it rich, we don't have any more sign painters--or at least enough of them--and, well, we're sort of screwed, aren't we? Unemployment in Long Beach was ... I think 14 percent the last I checked.
That was truly a very touching film . Something that was taught from someone else's trade from so many year ago . Those were the way things were when I was young and always looked up to people that could create something with their hands . I loved to see and watch them paint those huge advertisements on buildings when I was a young boy . I would sit on a curb all day watching one or two men make the side of a brick building come alive . I was never that good at painting but can build engines very easily . It is a lost art and very sad to see it go . Those men that painted those advertisements have gone to painting and lettering cars now or retired , and now are being replaced by a piece of vinyl with colors on them . They stick them on their cars and think they look just as good as a hand painted one . That is far from the truth and nothing you create from a computer will ever look as good as the stroke of a brush ! It's a real shame that everything we do is being replaced by a damn computer . Yes it's cheaper to do but it's not from the heart that someone has created. Thanks for that film and I wish more people would watch that and learn that an art of any kind is something that should never be replaced by something that is cheaper and not done from man . There are just some things that need to be taught from an elder's love of what he is doing . Retro Jim
A pretty neat fact is that Mail Pouch employed the same traveling painter for years to do their barns, he got so good he never even laid out his jobs first...
Since I have no talent, I at least try, at times, to document the talents of others before it disappears. Ghost signs are one of my favorites, so this video was, to quote someone else, inspirational. Thanks, Ryan. Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Thanks Ryan for a great post. The love those painters have for their work is obvious. Sure some people won't "get it" "Blue and yellow make green but we paint the green" Digitized music cuts out the richness of the old vacuum tube amplifiers. Laptops and computerized engines are here to stay, but carburetors and points, and the knowledge to tweak them, comes with time, and that knowledge comes from really understanding how engines work. I'm always inspired by the posts of the younger guys on the HAMB (to me that's 30 years old and younger), who love the old iron and want to keep it "old school". It is they who will keep the fires of our passion lit and and pass it down after we are gone.
theres a guy in Norco,Ca named Dave whittle his shop is next door to hot rods he does this kind of work. he does all the art work for Toms Farm off the 15. no vinyl peel and stick junk for him
Thanks for making me cry asshole The thing that really got me in this film is the word EASY, and how the painters used that word expressively. More and more in society today we look for the "easy" way, especially in everyday trivial, seemingly redundant tasks. The need to rely on a whole cavalcade of machinery and gadgets to make inconsequential daily activities easier and faster, is the initial reaction. However more and more that makes us as People, Artisans, and general Craftsman more and more redundant and useless. It's time consuming, takes skill, and is possibly dangerous to chop up and onion finely and precisely, its Easy, Fast, and Safe to stick it in the food processor and push a button. However, what do you as a person gain from that, what potential skills have been lost, any gain in martial dexterity gleaned from that monotonous and repetitive slicing motion. Anything we do with our hands, whether it be chopping that onion, hammering a nail, filing a piece of metal, will invariably benefit us in any hand related tasks we do. The more one does with his hands the better he will be with said hands. If I personally chop a dozen onions into perfect little diced cubes, I will undoubtedly become better at hammering said nail, filing said piece of metal, because I am now better with my hands, from repetitively chopping those vegetables. More and more as I began to do more with my hands, and rely less on machines, gadgets, jigs, and fixtures, do I find that those simple actions, become more and more therapeutic. As one gets into that monotony and clears his mind, the more relaxing, and joyful that action can become. No longer is something as simple as shaving, a nuisance, and time consuming chore, no longer is spending an hour shaping a piece of metal in the shop, with a file, some painstaking, menial task. Not only does that make us more appreciative of what we ourselves can now do, we begin to appreciate more and more what others do, and begin to respect these small things even more. Throughout that video the thought never occurred to me, how great that ad looked, I was constantly amazed at how beautiful those painter's work looked, I took the time to admire the talent they had to create such astonishing work, for something so trivial as advertising on a wall. Maybe if all advertising was hand painted again, it wouldn't seem so trivial anymore.
as goes time, so does the talent of those who have learned and not so much, who have copied. I have worked in the house paint industry for almost 3 decades and can remember the REAL painters. The ones who came into the shop and asked for a paint match to be perfect and those who took it for what it was worth. The painters who would spend hours just hand painting interior trim and those who would sand it and do a blow and go technique. And this is where I see where Ryan and his neighbor come to a cross road. Where the GT-350 is an amazing car and inspired by the talent of the founding fathers of the SCTA, it is simply using the tools of the given era. A "Tuner" kid uses what he has and creates the '32 Ford or '57 Chev of today. That may seem like art in a sense, but the passion of actually digging in and reaching into ones own soul and well being is lost to a handful of numbers. There is no exploratory and no adventure into the unknown. The new signs are decals provided by a company. The old signs are unmarked territory carved out of an idea and created by the artist with a passion for beauty. Good film, Ryan. Thanks
Man, it's hard to expand on the responses so far, so I won't try. Thanks for sharing. Schlitz did a end-of-WWII 50th anniversary mural campaign in '95 around Milwaukee... In my opinion, there's doing it and then there's doing it RIGHT.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around 24 and a millionaire. Hope it isn't the dude that invented the snoogy. I'm not livin right.
That video is absolutely amazing!! I should take more pictures of the wall art in my area before it's gone. It is so true that many of the younger folks don't get the old stuff. If they can't plug in a computer for a diagnostic the don't know where to start. But I think thier passion is there with the tuner cars. They are getting big power from small power plants. So it seems hot rodding is the same but different, new times, new technology.
Thank you Ryan for posting the video, and thank you all for the interesting posts! It's a great video! There is feeling in creating by hand, or with hand tools, doing it yourself, the human input, rather than with machines, or by a machine. It's hard to explain, but I think all of us on the HAMB understand.
The Jalopy Journal
