The Art of Sign Painting: Dan Giddings

From time to time I like to pay tribute on out blog to the now nearly extinct craft of sign painting (for instance: see our post dated April 5 2013).

This month in the San Geronimo Valley Community Center's Del Mue Gallery we're hosting an exhibit by a master sign painter--Dan Giddings.

Dan made this signage especially for the show

Dan Giddings, now retired, is a native of Marin County. Dan and his wife, Joanne, have lived in Forest Knolls since 1957. Dan grew up in Corte Madera and Larkspur and majored in advertising art at the College of Marin in 1952. Later he joined a leading Marin sign firm and spent five years in a union apprenticeship.

Dan has worked on signs on windows, boats, trucks and exterior walls of buildings. He was required to be proficient working in a vast array of mediums including with wood, metal, gold leaf along with carved, sand-blasted and routed signage.  He ran his Marin based sign painting shop for 40 years.

Dan painted this Lucas Valley Milk ad on the side of the Lagunitas Deli in the village of Lagunitas many decades ago.

Lagunitas, Marin county

Dan refers to such faded remnants as ‘wall ghosts’. Almost no one hand-paints signs anymore. The profession has given way to computer generated sign making ‘systems’ that cut letters out of sheets of vinyl.

Dan Giddings work has been “exhibited” on public surfaces all over northern California for decades. He has also exhibited in the Senior Lunch Group Art Show and at the Bohemian Club.

Here’s his work for show and a couple of shots from the reception.

Lisa and Dan Giddings chatting athe reception

Joanne Giddings and friend

Classic old school hand painted lettering

Reverse lettering painted on glass

Hand painted boat lettering

Joanne is wearing a T-shirt drawn by Dan

Close-up: Drawn for an abalone group

You can see an interview with Dan about his career on the Marin TV program “Seriously Now” at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGoF07PUFeA&feature=youtu.be

(His interview starts about 19 minutes into the program)

More on the art and craft of sign painting. There's a great new documentary on the subject at:

Sign Painting

A building downtown currently being renovated reveals some nice hand painted lettering.

Rip off the façade of most older building and underneath you may find this sort of crafty work.

Sign painting is yet another form of handmade art on the verge of extinction.

In the last decade the common sign painter has all but disappeared with the advent of computer generated vinyl die-cut lettering.

Where I work at the Community Center we still persist on using hand painted billboards for our cultural events but it gets harder all the time. (Our last sign painter just retired).

Here are a few signs that have been used in the area:

(This one is from  some years ago)

The Community Center still uses this San Francisco Mime Troupe sign every year.

Mexican Arts Festival

Lia May Byrd designed the Day of the Dead art for this one some years ago

Nice benefit signage in the manner of Victor Moscoso.

The design for our annual Spring Art Show

(Which is coming this May)



If you want to know a bit more about the art and craft of hand lettering there's a documentary film in the works. 

Check out this clip:

http://vimeo.com/samueljmacon/signpa...