Art & Inspiration Lost Art

saw this doc when it 1st came out. really awesome work. glad to see there are stiil some out there.

 

That's a well made film and a great story, Ryan.

They left out one important part, however...the prep work. I have a friend who was a lifelong signpainter decades ago. He told me that the painting was the fun, easy part. Scrubbing the whole surface down first with a wire brush, in the middle of the summer, was not.

 

Please tell me there's more...that was the best 13 minutes of film I've watched in a LONG time!

I love how at the end they showed the advertisement through it's progression. Genious advertising, and it was used with the same technology that was used in late 19th and early 20th century...

It correlates to our hobby perfectly, and definitely sparks the statement..."Just because you can doesn't always mean you should."

Thanks Ryan!

 

Great video Ryan! Thanks for posting. For me it speaks about doing things a certain way to get a certain result. It might take longer, but the end result is of a higher quality. Some of the builders on this forum take that approach, and the results speak for themselves.

It also speaks of keeping a tradition, an art alive!

Keep V-8ing and 4-banging!

 

They bring up a lot of good points that reflects on traditional hotrods.
You have to be in it for the long haul. It takes years to get it and them even more years to perfect it. Take your time, no rushing.
Most people won't get it, since there are easier, cheaper and faster ways to do things.
You have to have a passion for it and be willing to pass it on to the next generation, there are only a few left that get it and fewer everyday as some of our older members pass on. My only regret in life is not getting the stories and knowledge from these people. We are now having to deconstruct and reverse engineer thing to understand why or what they did.
And most important, be a good teacher, be patient with us young ones that are just starting to get it and spread the gospel.

 

Great!! I've always been drawn to those murals I see around the old towns in Montana.Wish I could bring some home to my walls but that impossible.Should take pic's of all I see.They are fading fast.Thanks Ryan that film was great!

 

Thats a cool video. Really gets you into their environment, their passion. Your neighbour at work doesn't get ours, but thats fine. If we all liked the same things, life would be boring.

 

The Wall Dogs came to Jacksonville several years ago and painted a bunch of signs all over the downtown area.

Earlier this year the Evil Step Dad came down and we took a walking tour of all the signs and he (Being a sign painter for the last century or so) was able to clue us in on the hows and whys of it.

Not quite a lost art but its getting close!

I took a customers car downtown and got this pic.



I.O.A.F.S.

 

As a lifelong gearhead/hotrodder I sometimes have a hard time with folks who just don't get it...We manufacture a kayak cart that originated through our race car endeavors, tools and experience. It's really the only thing in life we do better than anyone else in that field. Never fails to astound me how something so simple can be so hard for people who aren't mechanically oriented to figure out. Same folks look at cars and it's the same story. As a former sign guy, loved the movie, don't know if it will help "them" though.

 

As a forty year artist I really appreciate this beautiful film. The entire idea of commitment and hand work is rapidly disappearing in our rear view mirror. This was a constant battle as a teacher with younger and younger students, they never understood the concept. Our passion is one of the few remaining places where this is still valued. Thanks Ryan for a wonderful experience this morning, an excellent way to start the day!

 

Thank you for sharing it to us. It gives the same feeling as with the traditional rod and customs we admire. It's not only about cars, it goes much deeper than that.

 

THANKS Ryan, brought back great memories! I painted billboards & walls for Foster & Kleiser- Patrick- Clear Channel for 40 years, all my time was in F&K's 1911 building in Los Angeles where the weather was great for working outdoors, on the right coast it was a different story, those guys froze there ass off! We had bees, birds diving at us, bird shit, falling stages, falling cans of paint, not all fun & games 100 foot up in the air. This short film was very good, up close and personable.

 

Very cool film clip for sure !! That brought back tons of good memories as when I was a youngster I would ride the passenger trains through Kansas City with my dad. My favorite part was going across the river and through the bussiness district and looking at all of the advertisements on the buildings. The Western Auto building was killer. And the cat you mentioned with the muscle cars verses traditional hot-rods, I understand both sides of that story too !!! Thanks for a great thread >>>>.

 

I can relate. Refreshing.

 

Very cool.

Kinda like why does professional baseball only allow wooden bats?

 

Excellent, Ryan - says it all man, says it all ....

 

I love this quote "He couldn’t comprehend what has become my life." and yes I can relate to. I am 36 and I was heavily into Muscle Cars and Hot Rods when I was a teenager. I drove a 69 LeMans Custom S. However I have always been into carc, all types. I have twin 19 year old nephews that are a little better than your neighbor but I can tell they don't look through the same rose colored lens I do.

As I got into my early 20's the import scene was starting and I had an import daily driver that the aftermarket was blowing up for. I thought it was great that I could modify this car yet drive it to work everyday and get 30+ mpg. As I got older, got married and had kids, those types of cars seemed impratical. I started to go back to my roots and yearned for "Hot Rod". I still don't have one but I am working on that. I still like imports and am now able to share my knowledge of those with my nephews as they are college age and own imports. They may not be into the old Hot Rods or see what I see in them but at least I have them interested in being able to modify and work on their own cars.

Just keep at it, we'll get'm.

 

Awesome stuff. Can you imagine having a building wall as a canvas? I've designed loads of building walls, billboards, bus sides for movies, but only on that vinyl crap. Amen to the companies who pay and go the extra mile to keep this "art" alive.

 

WOW!! That was an awesome.

Even though the film was only 12 minutes long, the effects of it on me will last much longer. I "get" what they are doing and why they are so passionate about what they do. It is tough sometime to deal with people who don't get "it". I don't usually waste my time trying to explain.

 

Ryan, this hit me somewhere deep. I'm not sure if I can explain. Dad always instructed and inspired me in my efforts and talents. Even though in my youth I didn't have the eloquence to tell him "...yeah dad, I get it..." he knew and so did I. Sometimes just because he was who he was he felt the need to explain again over certain projects or practices and it took years for me to relish those moments vs regret them. That film has within it's story exactly what I was inspired to do and what most all of us in this community understand and respect. At 1st I wanted to bitch you out for putting something up that brought those feelings out, but a genuine thank you is more like it so, thank you for bringing this up. Here's some of the art he'd passed on to me. Hope y'all like it...

The part in my right and is metal, the long one the real thing:

A steel clad storage door:





There's more but perhaps another time. He and I would listen to old music from the 40s through the 60s when we did it together. I still do that now that it's just me.

 

Fantastic.................thanks Ryan and the guys who paint.

 

Great video. I take a lot of pictures of old wall art like that.
I went to art school at a time when everything was about to change. By the time I graduated, most of what I'd learned was quickly becoming outdated, I made a living for a while, but soon realized I was becoming a dinosaur, and changed fields to feed my family. I really admire the guys who made it.
As far as your neighbor not understanding our hot rods, I think it's understandable. What we call traditional hotrods really should be called antique hot rods. It was never a hot rod tradition to go backwards, or remain the same, so in a sense, your neighbor probably thinks more like the hot rodders of the old days, than most of the guys here with the "traditional" mindset.
Don't get me wrong, old style hot rods and customs are what I love, and I didn't say this to cause a shit storm, it's just how I see it. You gotta admit, it does defy explanation as to why someone would spend $10k to build a flat head only to get left in the dust by a mild sbc crate motor. As the saying goes, "If you gotta ask, you wouldn't understand."

 

Ive always been enthralled by old wall art. Driving through the old mill towns as a kid I always had my head pressed to glass looking up. Too many of us now live life with there head down looking at our cells and shoes...too bad...


This one was done/restored at Ralphs Diner in Worcester, MA a few years ago...

 

Ryan,
I thank you, having been around sign painters all my life it means something special to me. I remember back when I first noticed a sign being painted on a side of a three story building next to the Downtown Bowling alley. I was 10 years old walking uptown for a Saturday morning movie, and this Man yelled "Hey Kid" wanna make Three Dollars. In 1949 Three dollars was a serious amount for me. The man said that all I had to do was climb this ladder and hold the end of a String while he snapped it. This string was a chalk line of course, and working alone he quite naturally needed someone to hold the end of the string. My folks always told me to never talk to strangers, but $3.00 blurred my judgement, and I climbed that ladder and hoped he wasn't kidding. From that day on whenever Mr. Linville was painting a sign I watched, and was waiting to hold another line.
Larry Fleming firstnomad
www.angelfire.com/jazz/flatlandstudio