Interview: Philadelphia Sign Painter Gibbs Connors

Gibbs and Sean discuss all sorts of things sign painter (and non sign painter) related in this episode, including Volkswagens and the Smithsonian screening of the movie Sign Painters. More info on Gibbs: http://www.gibbsconnors.com/

Transcription:

Coming to you from Starr Studios in Denison, Texas, this is Coffee with a Signpainter, a weekly podcast hosted by sign painter, Sean Starr, that consists of interviews with other sign painters and some of the customers and characters Sean comes across while running his studio. Okay, everybody. Welcome back to Coffee with a Sign Painter. Today, we have Gibbs Connors, Philadelphia sign painter. He's been up there painting signs for over twenty years.

A lot of you, who are interested in sign painting are well aware of who this guy is. Very diverse and interesting guy. And I think you're going to enjoy the interview. So, that's it. Today's episode is with Gibbs Conners, Philadelphia sign painter.

Let's go. Okay. So since I'm from Philadelphia, I'm wearing my Benjamin Franklin, living history glasses for you. I see. I like it.

I like it. Those are very distinguished. And I don't know if you can see it here, but I got a picture of you on my wall right here from when you were a kid. And let's see. Where is it?

What is that? Every time I look at that, I think it's you. It looks like Peter Max or something. What is it? Well, that's the pigpen from the grateful dad.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Cool. Kindred spirits. Yeah.

Right on. So, yeah, I'm seeing some cool brick stuff in the background. Is this your, studio? Yeah. That's my this is my shop here.

Yeah. Cool. Very cool. So, you're like in an old warehouse building up in Philadelphia. Right?

Yeah. I got this building here. It's, my shop's about, 4,000 square feet on where I paint signs. Wow. And, yeah, it's pretty roomy.

It's, it's impossible to heat and impossible to cool. So, you know, it's kinda like camping. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm hoping that this year, I I have my year of comfort as far as the studio goes, because this has central air.

So in Texas, central air in your workspace is, like, unheard of. So I'm hoping to see that that works out. We'll see. Yeah. Yep.

Good luck with that. I'm, I'm working on stuff like that myself. We'll see if I can get it together. Yeah. The last studio in Denton that you came by and visited at, I kinda had that set up with some decent airflow, you know, with some fans and, some other stuff.

But when it's still you know, when it reaches, you know, over a 100 degrees, just kind of miserable no matter what you do. Yeah. It's gonna be hot. Yep. Sure.

So tell me what you've been up to, man. This year, the past few years, I've been doing a tremendous amount of gold work. A lot of walls. I just finished a vintage, Citro and HVAN for one of my clients. Yeah.

I saw pictures of that. That was really cool. Since we are having coffee with a sign painter. Ah, nice. How do you pronounce that?

La Colombe. La Colombe. Okay. Yeah. I see I see you post a lot of pictures.

You you do a lot of work for them. Yeah, I do. Yeah, they're really great to work with. I've been working with those guys since 1994 now, which is, you know, it's hard to believe that much time has gone by, but it's cool to be working with someone for that long and see, you know, all our successes along the way. And those guys are really doing great.

One of the owners, Todd, has has or had this, reality TV show called the coffee hunt or, dangerous grounds. It was coffee hunting Uh-huh. All over the world. And, you know, so he's gotten a lot of lot of exposure from that. It's really neat to see.

Cool. Yeah. So have you always been in Philadelphia? I moved here in at the very end of 1988. And, you know, that's where I've spent the majority of of, my life.

I've lived down here for twenty seven years now, so I, you know, I lived in, you know, my hometown for the twenty five. So I've been, I'm more of a Philadelphian than, you know, an upstate New Yorker at this point. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. I I noticed too, and I and, you know, you and I have talked multiple times, and you came and visited the studio in Denton. Yep. But I I I've kinda noticed a sideline thing.

Like, you're kind of, you're kind of an entity in the Volkswagen world somewhat, right? Yeah. What's that all about? It's cool. Well, yeah, it is.

Thank you. It's, I don't even know where to start with that. I, you know, I I had this obsession with Volkswagens since I was a little kid. And, I had a yellow Tonka Beetle, that I used to play with. And, I couldn't wait till I was old enough to drive and I wanted a yellow Beetle.

And, you know, I got one. It was my car. It was a hand me down from one of my sisters. And, you know, from there I got another Beetle and I don't know how many Volkswagens I've had, you know, since I got into it, but, I usually have like 10 or 12 of them at a time. And, I'm really into bosses, the early bosses, 67 and earlier, and more specifically, kind of 58 and earlier bosses.

And, you know, it's like anything else. The earlier they are, the harder they are to find, the harder it is to find the parts, and the more money they end up costing. And, and the less, you know, kind of driver friendly they are, and, you know, it's this whole sort of like techno grouch thing. They the original ones came with 25 horsepower motors, so like 25 horsepower. One tractor probably has more horsepower than that Wow.

These days. So, yeah, it's, it's one of those things that, like, you know, I've pursued, I've explored, you know, I've gotten along the way, I've, you know, I've, with few exceptions, I've I've gotten just about everything I've ever wanted with it. But in the end, you know, I'm like trapped by my possessions. It's, you know, it's like, you wanna own the stuff and the stuff ends up owning you. And if I wanted to get out of here in a month, I couldn't.

If I wanted to get out of here in a year, I couldn't. I've got a friend like that in California who's got, horses. Uh-huh. Her and her husband talk about that all the time. There's all these things they wanna do, but they're, like, they're kinda trapped in that lifestyle to where even just getting away for a weekend is a chore.

Yeah. Well, Volkswagens, you you just gotta fill them with gas and change the oil and adjust the valves. I can't imagine owning horses. Yeah. It's gotta be twenty four four hours a day at times.

So Over the years, I've owned six Beetles. Well, one of them was actually a a Fastback. Yeah. There you go. But, yeah.

I mean, I've I've I've kind of got the the same challenge. Like, I I would love to get another one and fix it up, but then it's like I've got to keep track of that car and do something with it and store it and so it's Yeah. But you've got how many now? I, you know, I'd have to get out my fingers and start counting. Yeah.

That many? I usually like 10 or 12, something like that. And, lately, what I've been getting into more is, the old American wagons. I've picked up a couple, in the past year, 59 Fords. They call them long roofs.

They're, you know, it it they're a whole lot more drivable than Volkswagens. It's like you're sitting on the couch holding a steering wheel driving one of those things. Whereas a Volkswagon, you're all hunched over. It's hot. It's loud.

It's slow. It's, you know, it's quite frankly kinda dangerous driving those old things. But, Yeah. So, you know, it's it's, it's more unknown territory for me. And it's, you know, further expansion of my, my car interests.

So, So with with that side by side, did you ever get into pinstriping? Never. No. Never got into that? No.

People have asked me about doing that, and I just say that's, you know, that's somebody else's, thing. I could probably find you somebody. But, but recently, actually, just today, a buddy of mine from, Olympia, Washington has a Volkswagen bus out here at a friend's house, and he asked me to run a stripe around the thing. I'll give it a try. I told him if it's terrible, we can get out some mineral spirits and cheese cloth and wipe it right back off.

Right. But, I'm gonna give it a try, you know? I'll try new stuff, but, it's just a single stripe. It's like pulling one big long line, and it's not like that really beautiful, symmetrical, colorful stuff that I think you could do that kind of work, can't you? Did you do you have a lot of history with that?

I yeah. We've got a huge history with it. That's how I spent the ten years of painting with my with my dad was custom painting and striping, and then we got into lettering. I'm not as skilled as it as I used to be because I used to do it all day long every day. Yep.

Yep. We go to car dealerships and people that fixed up cars and, you know, we'd just drive around doing that all day long. Wow. But, now, you know, I don't get to bust out daggers nearly as often. So I can still get the results I want, but it takes me a lot longer.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To think it all through and then to, you know, sit there and actually do it. Whereas before, it was just like bam.

Yeah. We aren't as young and daring as we used to be. Scary how that just happened. Yeah. Yeah.

It just happened one day. Yep. Yeah. I I I think that, you know, that kind of, ignorance of your own limitations thing. Oh, yeah.

It it comes in handy as far as getting you to explore things, but, you know, as I've gotten older, I'm like, that's a little bit reckless. Yeah. You know, I still have this desire to to try stuff that I've never done before. And, this guy that, I knew when I moved to Philadelphia, a guy by the name of Dennis Favin, I was playing around with smalls and gold leaf and stuff like that, and, he said forget about the smalls. He said nobody's ever gonna want that stuff.

Just, you know, no nobody's gonna spend the money on that stuff and, don't don't even bother with it. And, I saw him. He drove past me one day as I was up on some scaffolding and I was putting up a sign with smalls on it. And, so I've always been one to to try new stuff. And, that's you know, I gotta have that challenge to, to keep me interested and keep me moving and learn new things.

And, yeah, it's never sign painting's never been this repetitive thing for me, ever. But I I really need to have that. I gotta I gotta be able to try new stuff. And, most of the challenge a lot of the time is just meeting deadlines, And that gets that gets a little bit old. But, you know, I enjoy the satisfaction of that too.

Like, give me a due date that you want, and I'll get it done. If we say, you know, we'll talk someday about, you know, getting this signed on, it'll never happen. It's like Right. A friend inviting you over for dinner. Oh, you should come over for dinner sometime.

Never happens. Yeah. But if you say, hey, what are you doing this Saturday? Let's do it. So that's I've always been been driven like that.

Yeah. No. I I think that's a good point. Those of us who've done this for a while now, that's a common thread I see, you know, in my conversations is, you know, I know with myself, if I had just stuck with doing what it is that I learned with my dad or whatever, I had to quit a thousand times over. I know.

Yeah. Just because there's only so much of it you can do and keep your interest. You know, but Smile. Oh, I gotta throw the flash off. Go ahead.

Okay. Yep. Cool. But, yeah. I mean, it's, you know, I've I'm always trying to dabble and, I I do have that same motivator that if somebody says, you know, don't mess with that or you can't do that or whatever, then I'm like, okay.

We'll see. Yeah. Yeah. I had a, this guy come to me that wanted, like, an apprenticeship, but I've always sort of steered clear of that sort of thing. This guy was an out of you out of work union plumber.

And, you know, so I knew I knew he could work hard. And, you know, as we know, this stuff is hard work. Mhmm. You know, you gotta be way up in the air sometimes. You gotta be working from sun up till sundown and beyond.

So, you know, I gave him a shot, and he came to me and said, hey, what's this, what's this glue chipping stuff? And I was like, glue chipping, you know? Yeah. It's cool. I don't think I'll ever do it unless you wanna try it.

So he he watered up a bunch of that, the hide glue, and, you know, we gave it a try with sort of, you know, of course, we didn't read the directions, you know, so but it started to work. And then I did a workshop with, with Roderick Treece out in Encinitas, California. And, I think you you I'm gonna quote you, Sean. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of how to do this stuff. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So, I came back to my shop after doing this workshop. And for, I think, for a month and a half or maybe even two months, all I did was sample letters every single day. Good chipping and gilding and trying different carrots and different typefaces and all this kind of stuff. I just got obsessed with that.

And I was able to sell a job right there after that, it it paid for his course. And, and for the understanding that he offered with this stuff, it was really phenomenal to to to do it was really a confidence builder for me because I'm, I'm largely self taught when it comes to this stuff. That guy I mentioned earlier, he would, that was a sign painter, he wouldn't tell me a thing about Goldleaf. And he told me, I'll never tell you a thing. And I was like, alright.

Alright. Well, I'll just figure it out for myself. And, you know, I did. So, there's so much to learn with this stuff. And, yeah.

I've got a I've got a long way to go, but I've I've started to figure out a lot of stuff and start to get a lot more confident doing this after, like, almost thirty years of doing this stuff. I'm like, I'm starting to get it. Yeah. No. I know.

I know the feeling and, you know, there's been a lot of things over the years that I didn't have access to anyone that I could even beg for the information from, you know, especially, you know, pre social media. Oh, yeah. You know, like, you couldn't even find anybody that did anything that was knowledgeable. Right. And let alone, hey, you're a stranger.

You know, share your trade secrets with me. But, you know, there's been so much experimentation and I kind of always hid in shame to a certain extent because there were certain things that, I didn't know how to do them. So I kind of made up, you know, some work around or some way to make it work. Yeah. You know, but I'm not ashamed of that anymore.

Yeah. But, you know, I did go through a period of time where I was just like, you know, I don't I don't want anyone to find out how I'm doing this because I know it's probably not right. But then you get enough under your belt and you're like, I don't care. It looks good. Yeah.

Well, I I think that's that's what I found with sign painting is that it's really anything goes as long as it works. You know, I I don't carry a screwdriver with me to open my paint cans, I but I always got change in my pocket. So I pull out a quarter, and I open up my can of paint with a quarter every time. It's all about solving problems with without necessarily the full kit with you. I went up to New York City last Thursday for this job that's been looming, and I had I you know, a lot of times I'll back up my gold jobs with, using a silk screen.

You know, it's it's a great old trick. Right. Nothing new. So I show up there, I got my screen, I got my screen paint, and I realized I don't have my size brushes, and I don't have the blocks of wood to make a jig on the window. Mhmm.

Like, oh. Oh. I've been through this enough times where I've showed up at a job not prepared and still pulled it off. And I always say I always tell people, like, when I got, somebody working with me, I always say, right now, the amateurs would go back to the shop and be back another day. We're the pros.

We're gonna figure this out. So I ended up taking a squeegee that I had with me and cutting the squeegee blade, the durometer. I cut that off with a, with an exact probably a razor blade, and I used that for the positioning blocks on the glass. I'm giving away trade secrets here. And then for the for the size brush, I took a paper towel and dipped it in the, dipped it in in my water size and just squeezed it out of the glass.

Been there, done that. I've used that. I've used paper towel with oil paints before Yeah. In a pinch. Yeah.

And then I and then I didn't have any cotton with me either. So, somebody I sent somebody out to find some rolled surgical cotton. Of course, she couldn't find it because she didn't know what it was. So she comes back and she says she can't find it. And I said, just regular cotton balls will do it.

So she comes back with this huge bag of cotton balls. But in the meantime, I had taken a piece of velvet to to to burnish the gold with. And, you know, it scratched it up a little bit, but it worked. Yeah. And I got that job done.

And I was I was I had that I had that I had it done really before she got back from the store with the cotton balls. I she put them down. I was like, I don't even need these things now. But, you know, it's all about figuring it out. And, you know, I think that's something, I think that's really well put is, you know, solving problems.

I think that's the thing that, probably any kind of, you know, creative trade, You know, I would assume some somebody laying, you know, really cool layouts with stone and all that. That's that's probably part of the challenge and the excitement is just, you know, having to problem solve throughout each process. And I I I think that's what's kept some of us old farts still going. There's a fine line between being a problem solver and a hack, though. And I I got one foot in the on either side of that line a lot of times.

Yeah. Well, me too. So But it's, you know, it's it's a sign it's a sign, you know, that I o a f s, whatever. I forget what those initials, stand for, but, it's something like that. I did this job recently for, for a fairly new client where where I do a lot of work for, museums, doing exhibition work, and we screen print directly onto the walls.

So there's often this confusion about, you know, about the job, whatever it may be. So we get there and this one aspect of the job is to be screen printed on the wall, but they didn't they gave us the wall color instead of the graphic color, if you follow me. Yeah. So, you know, so but they had a can of this designer brand, silver metallic paint. It's latex.

And the silk screen is a water based, emulsion on there. So it's like, well are we gonna go back to the shop and mix up a silver metallic screen paint? Or are we gonna give it a go with the latex paint? You know what we did. We ran that latex paint through a water based emulsion screen, got one chance, and in fact, we we did it with two hits, and the screen didn't break down on us.

So Really? Yeah. We got it done. And that was something new after screen printing on walls for twenty five years. I'd never tried latex paint.

Never wanted to, but we got it done. And, you know, realistically, we probably would've had to come back the next day. But, we were able to stick it out. And, and it was just a little print that was probably, you know, 11 by 14 inches, but still, you know, it's it's, See, now that's a really weird gig. Like, I've noticed you've got a lot of photos with different museum things.

How in the world did you get hooked up with that? I I used to go to this, drawing class at a place in Philadelphia called the Fleischer Art Memorial, which is like free adult education for, art. And they have everything from lithography, etching photography, figure drawing, painting, anything you want there. And, I was in there one night sitting next to this woman and, you know, we're doing figure drawing and she looked at my drawings, I was looking at the pair of drawings, we started talking and she said, here comes the Yeah. Here comes the training.

Here comes the three thirty eight. So, You just gotta go for it, man. It's gonna be rumbling out there for a while. Okay. I'll just wait till the air horns pass.

So the, she said, well, you know, we use sign painters and I thought, you know, that the the museum, they never have the likes of me. But, she said, you know, give me give me one of your cards, and I'll pass it on to the right person. And, they called me up, and, I went in there for, like, an interview and showed them my work. And, you know, a couple weeks later they called me up and they said, Oh, we want you to paint this sign for us. It says exhibition exit.

So I said, okay. I'll, you know, I'll do that. They told me they had somebody, but that they were happy with. So they didn't know if they'd use me or not, but they think they're getting tired of this guy. And, I worked there.

After that, I did every exhibition for twenty two years at that museum. Screen printing on walls and hand lettering. I worked for the Whitney in New York. There's one in, Weston, Massachusetts. I still do this exhibition work.

I work for this, museum in Delaware called Winter Tour, which is probably one of the biggest and best, museums in the world for decorative arts. I work for another museum in Philadelphia, which is Barnes Foundation. You know, old time controversial place, but it's, you know, it's probably the hottest thing in the art world. Why is it controversial? He there's this movie called The Art of the Steel, which, you know, it's a it's a it's a documentary about doctor Albert Barnes and how he came to be and, come here, pop.

Come here. You be quiet. So, it's, you know, it it it it it involves some, these things that involved his will and overturning his, you know, it's a it's a long it's a long, long story. But, it basically overturned his will, which was to keep his, keep his collection in this building, where he housed it. And then in but instead, they moved it down onto the, what they call the Museum Mile in Philadelphia.

Which, you know, it has its good, but, I think it's great for the general public. The, you know, the old time supporters of the Barnes Foundation, are unhappy with it. But, you know, it went the way it went. It's a fabulous new facility. It's state of the art.

It actually has HVAC in there, which, you know, the old place was not. It didn't have like the right levels to, you know, house art. So, yeah, that's getting off on, getting off on some tangents there. But it's a it's a fabulous place. It has the most, you know, it's impressionist art.

You know, it's it's hugely popular stuff. It's beautiful stuff to look at, and he had this way of collecting art that, you know, it kind of redefined how people viewed his art, his vision, and, and his collection of it. He really is. It's a it's if you come to Philadelphia and you enjoy art at all, it's the place to go. It really is.

Cool. So, yeah. Great client. They're great to work with. You know, we all like to get paid on time and, you know, unfortunately, money plays into, you know, running a business, and we run businesses.

And and they've been great. I've been working for them for, you know, since they opened this new facility, which is probably three years now, maybe four years. So time goes by quickly. Okay. Cool.

So what's your, what's your take on the popularization of sign painting and where it's all heading and where you fit in with that and all that? I'm curious. You know, one day I was driving around in Philadelphia and I saw this gold leaf job on a transom window. And I knew I didn't do it. And I knew this other gilder in Philadelphia didn't do it.

And I thought, who could have done that? And then I start seeing this other I see another job that somebody else did and it's good. I think, oh, there's something going on here. And then I start finding out about different young timers painting signs now. And I was worried, and I thought, oh man, I'm like the old dog.

And these guys are young and fresh and good work. And, so we had a little, a summit meeting at my shop, found out who these guys were, and I invited them over. Smart move. Yeah. So they're, you know, these guys do good work and, and they're and they're looking to me for information and tips and, you know, how to survive and all this granted that I knew this stuff, but then I realized like that I'm where I am and in context because of these guys and what they know, and not to say that I'm further ahead or better or anything.

So we had, we had the Philly powwow summit meeting of, of the, the young timers and who's painting signs in Philadelphia, and I think we had, I think we had eight people here that had been painting signs or doing chalkboards or something involved in signage for three years or less. There was Bill Sanders, Kelly Franklin, Christian Cantiello, Chris Russo, Danny Fox, let me see, Jamie Cartagena, and Shawn Gallagher, seven of them, and including me eight. I recognize half those names from social media stuff. Yeah, and you know, they everybody's sort of like, you know, a couple years have gone by, some people have, you know, you see them more often than others. And a bunch of those people I've used, out on jobs, and I try to keep everybody in rotation so nobody thinks I don't like them or something, you know, so I try to give everybody a call whatsoever if I need an extra set of hands.

So, yeah, and you know, we just talked about, you know, the code and respect for each other's clients and not mowing each other's lawn, and then we played a round of, electro pounce roulette. I let everybody try my electro pounce. So, nobody got shocked that time, but we've all we've all been shocked Oh, yeah. At one time or another. So, yeah.

And they're looking at this stuff and, you know, all the stuff I got here in the computer pod, and they're like, woah, I've never seen one of those things in my kitchen. 1986 is when I got mine. So, you know, so it it's cool, and I think it established this sort of even playing field. And, you know, so it's like, you know, there's no hiding behind the social media or the computer, that we we've all met face to face. And, you know, we all gotta do what we gotta do out there, but, you know, we'll call each other often on jobs and say, hey, did you get a call on the stainless brewery out in Phoenixville?

Did these guys call you up? Yeah, yeah, they called me. And we'll talk about, you know, the different different aspects of the job and, what, you know, what we think is is fair or right or, you know, maybe what the clients like or, you know, joke around a little bit behind the scenes of, you know, how we how we deal with more difficult clients and things like that. Yeah. It's it's kind of funny the dynamic.

I've got Cole Bridges who worked with me for a couple years. Uh-huh. Kinda took him under my wing, and he's off, you know, out on his own now. And, but we get identical calls, you know? Yeah.

Because Oh, yeah. You know, they'll find us both. And it's just funny because we'll we'll compare notes like, okay. So what did they say to you? This is what they said to me, you know?

Yeah. Yep. Yep. And they and they're making it sound like, oh, I'm so glad. I I I it's Sean Starr.

And they're saying the same thing to Cole. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Cole. We There's a lot of game playing going on.

Yeah. Yeah. Good for them. Good for us. Yeah.

Yeah. It it it's all good. It just it's funny how people are. Yeah. It's solidarity among the workers, you know.

It's we should have we we should have, like, a a a craft guilt or a trade guilt where we we talk about all these things. We kinda do, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I I think with the personalities involved, I think any kind of formal organization would be self destructive.

But I I think we've kinda got our own informal, you know, little union of sorts going, and I think that's a good thing. Yeah. It's good. It's, yeah. Before all this this Internet stuff, you know, I operated in a in a complete vacuum.

Yes. Over here and here. And I I got on I I figured one day, I was like, let me Google search sign painting and see what shows up. And I see these YouTube videos and I see, Damon Steyer from New Bohemia, and he's talking about like this this passion for sign painting. And I'm sitting there with, like, tears in my eyes going, like, he he's speaking my language.

I can't believe it. Somebody else cares. Yeah. And this guy, you know, Damon's articulate. And, you you know, he's talking about all this stuff.

And I'm like, wow. This whole thing with the Internet. Wow. Sign painting on the Internet. It's it's out there.

I'm gonna look look at more stuff. And then, then I Google searched myself one day and, and I found the sign painter movie thing and some effluvium magazine sign painters of note. And I see all these different people's names on it. Mike Meyer, Dobell, I think you might have been on there, Colt, Damon, all these people and I'm like, wait a minute, I'm in with these these group of guys? Like, I can't believe it.

Like, somebody out there, somebody, somehow these people found me. Someone's watching. Someone's watching. And then I was like, oh, man. I hope they don't call me for that Seinfeldander movie.

And they didn't. But I couldn't wait to see it. And, I went down to the, the world premiere down at the Smithsonian. And, oh, man. It was like, I I think I was the one in that room.

Yeah. I couldn't wait to see this thing. It was great. It it was like, and again, I was sitting there. I laughed.

I cried. It was two pinkies down. It was brilliant. Yeah. It's really great.

Yeah. I did the banner for that screening. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I like to think that I I had a piece of artwork hanging in the Smithsonian.

Yeah. I think you certainly did. Yeah. Yeah. Not exactly the legit way, but hey, who cares?

Still in there. And, and there were a bunch of people there that, let me see. Ira Cohen was there, Vance Ryland was there, Rodney from Red Rocket Signs was there. And I don't know who else, but I know there were other sign painters there. And then there were all these other people who had, like, this appreciation for sign painting.

They wanted to see it. And I was like, this this movie is gonna be good. This is really good for us to to have this out there. It's brilliant. Yeah.

You know, the director sent us a link so that we could watch the final cut before it was even screened. Uh-huh. Cool. That was the most nerve wracking moment for me because I was like, if this sucks, this has been an utter waste of time and this is going to be like probably terrible for all of us. Yeah.

Yeah. And as as the final credits were going up, I was like, okay, they did an awesome job. It was really good. It was it was just phenomenal, you know. So, yeah, I've I've I've watched it many times at home.

Somebody I was down in Florida, and somebody asked me to sit on some panel about the movie, and, you know, it was really cool to sit there and be able to talk about that, the people that were interested in it, and, there's always this dark space between the consumer who needs a sign and us, the people that make the signs, and the people that fill that dark space are the graphic designers and the architects that are, they are in direct communication with their clients who say, you need to have your window gilded, or you need to have a carved sign, or you could get your wall painted, you could have it look new, or you could have it look old, and I know somebody that can do it for you. Sean Starr or Gibbs Conners or Mike Meyer or anybody else. So it's, I don't know about you, I don't do sales calls. I never have. I, you know, I've gone out, I've handed, I've seen people are opening a store, I walk in, I hand them a car, they look at it, I know they throw it in the trash can.

They don't, they, it's just one more person that's trying to sell them something. Yeah. I'm I'm fortunate and probably like yourself, I haven't even had the need to for years now. Yeah. But, even if I had the need, the idea makes me cringe because you go in on such a different footing of I need this, I need you to give me this work.

And so now all of a sudden, you're the flunky who they're, you know Whereas when when the client comes to you, they've already researched, they've already looked at your work online, they've already seen other projects in the area you've done, And that built in respect is there. And, you know, the approach is, hey, would you have time to work on this? Would you be interested in working on my project? Versus, I've got a rent payment due in three days and I gotta knock something out. And then immediately the tone changes and it's, you know, okay, I'm gonna put the squeeze on the artist guy.

Right. I despise that that dynamic so much that I I if I had to, yeah, I would go out and hand out cards. But man, yeah, worst thing on earth. Yeah. Even if you don't need the work, I think it we all cheapen our when we go, when we put ourselves in that position.

It looks like we need the work. And, yeah, it's a completely different footing. The best best footing for the, for any negotiation is the ability to say no to somebody. And if if if I know I can tell somebody no, no I can't give you a discount, no I can't, no I can't, then and if I truly can't, then I have the upper hand in the negotiating because I don't need the work, and I don't need hassle. But if you do need the work and you can't say no, then, you know, it's it's gonna be it's gonna be a it's gonna be a mini resentment that you're gonna that I'm gonna have to work through doing that stuff.

Yeah. And I've talked about this with some other old timers as well is just that I don't know, maybe two minutes of the initial conversation with somebody. If if my instincts and red flags start going off, I don't go any further. Right. You know, because it's gonna stink every step of the way.

And by the time you're totally embedded in the project and in the thick of it, you're going to want to kill them. Yeah. And maybe yourself. So Yep. Yep.

You know, I've learned over the years, that it's totally okay to walk away and just tell somebody I'm really not interested in working on what you got. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Absolutely.

Sure. Yep, yeah my my phone keeps ringing, I got two or three calls in the last, you know, Friday and today about people that I I don't even ask how they they find me anymore, but somebody sent me a picture of this cool old wall for a shoe store. And, I can't I I I wanna paint it. You know, it's a it's a big wall, and I wanna get out there and do something cool for them. But they found me.

And, if I was driving down the road and I saw this wall and thought, maybe I could go in there and see if, you know, they need to have that wall repainted, then they think then they'd be thinking it's going to be 3 or $400, not 3 or $4,000 Right. To do it. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's it's always nice when the phone rings. It's, you know, I probably get one out of 10 jobs anyway, but at least they're still calling, you know. And out of those one, I I another thing I always say is that I'm glad for every job I get.

I'm twice as glad for every job I don't get. Yeah. No. That's true. I mean, it's, you know, I especially now that we've kind of shifted gears and have slowed our pace down, you know, I turned down the bulk of everything, you know.

No, that's good. I've got a handful of clients that are repeat or they'll refer someone. I'll take a look at that stuff. But I mean, you know, just that that cold call of somebody calling in, you know, the very question I ask is, have you looked through our website? And if they say no, I know that means they just pulled the number off of the Google Maps listing.

They don't even know what I do, which is completely not normal. Right. You know, the normal offerings of a sign shop. And so I just, I got that call earlier today. And, you know, the questions that the person was asking was it was just so obvious that you're you've called the wrong place.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I don't need really any more clients. I need the clients that I have to just keep me work.

That's it. Because I don't need to establish that I'm not gonna split with your deposit, that I'm gonna deliver on time. I don't need to establish that stuff. All my clients already know this about me. So if somebody comes through, a recommendation or something like that's a big help, but when the phone just rings and somebody's asking me these questions and and I sense the mistrust, if they mistrust me, then I know they're not to be trusted.

Because, you know, I've been doing this and you know, and people the other funny question I get is, do you really do this for a living? Yeah, yeah, this is what I do. No, I work at Wells Fargo, but I just tinker with this on the weekends. It's a crazy question. And these are the people that a year from now, they aren't gonna be in business.

And I'll be, I've been I've been in Philadelphia now for, twenty seven years. There's certain locations that I've been up on that poll rig, and a new sign three, four times, different storefronts, three or four times, I'm lettering that same window, and I was out there one day with my ladder on this pole rig, and this guy comes, he was the like the caretaker of this church across the street, and he's like, oh, I don't know if I'd I'd be leaning up on that pole like that. And I said, you know, it's okay. It's alright. I'll be alright.

If you wanna hold the ladder for me, you can, but I'll be alright up here. And he said, that thing could rip out of that wall. And I said, yeah. It could. But you know what?

This is the time I've been up on this pole in the last twenty years. It's gonna be alright. Mhmm. And it was. He's like, oh, really?

I've got the last four restaurants that had been there. He's like, yep. Yep. Yep. Okay.

Alright. So, yeah. That's, that's the way it is. It's such an interesting thing about that that respect issue that you mentioned. The most solid business people I've dealt with over the years, there's never an issue with respect and trust.

Mhmm. You know, it's all those are the people that are the most trusting and the most respectful are the people that you see excel, you know, you help them get their place open and five years later, you know, they're, you know, growing and expanding and everything else. Yep. And it's always that nickel and dime mentality and and the and the, lack of respect for your time and your expertise. Those are the people that never succeed.

It's an interesting thing to observe. It is. It sure is. Yep. Yep.

So so let's talk music, man. What do you wanna talk about? What what you've been listening to in the last seven days, and please share something embarrassing. Well, I always have mixed feelings about, you know, the time that I, you know, that I've spent on on tour with the Grateful Dad. Mhmm.

You know? Because a lot of people, they're full of hate for the Grateful Dad, but I, you know, I've been doing since probably 1972. And, and I just got tickets for their, for their fiftieth anniversary show in Santa Clara, California. I was one of my lucky ones. Oh.

So, you know, I listened to a lot of that stuff. Let's see. There's, there's this old timey, kind of dust bowl mountain folk music by the Morrison brothers, called Dry and Dusty. And it's just like a it's just like a piano and or not a piano, like a violin or and banjo rag. Okay.

But it's it's it's sweet. I recently discovered that the Morrison brothers. I think they're out of Arkansas. And then you know I'm a fan of Hank III, Hank Williams III. Haven't seen him in a while, with his new music.

But you know I like him. He's he makes some good points about contemporary country music. Let's see what else. You know, I'm somebody that is, I don't own a TV. Yes.

I own a TV. I don't even listen to NPR, I don't read the newspaper, I don't read the stuff on that that people put on Facebook about what's happening when and where and, you know, whatever cop got shot or whatever cop killed some kid or whatever, I don't read any of it. I'm in what I call media blackout. Yeah. I look at I look at the pictures, I look at Instagram, I look at Facebook, I wanna know what my friends are up to.

Coming around to, I only listen to satellite radio in my car. That's it. And I'm kinda stuck in time. Yeah. You know, it's like that music I listened to at high school.

I'm not, you know, I'm not like classic rock guy, but, you know, it's cool to see hear music from that era. You know, I had somebody went by with blasting Foreigner cold as ice this morning. It was immediately cycling and stuck at my head. I was like, no. No.

No. But there's other good stuff out there from that time period. There's this, there's this guy, his name is father Yod. Father, y o d, Yod. I I saw a a documentary that was Is he something?

Yeah. Trippy dude. Yeah. The guy is a decorated marine. He was a killer in World War two.

And, he went on to form this, cult in California and opened a restaurant on Sunset Strip called, I think, The Source. Yeah. And that's where all of the, like, celebrities at the time would eat lunch and totally eat crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

Frank Zappa and Jody Mitchell. And, there was this, when HBO came out, there was a show called Freddy Freddie Prinze and Friends, and he had all these comedians on, and, anybody that you can think of that's big now, like, Jay Leno was on there, he's a young kid. But there was this guy on there, Tim Thomerson. Look it up on YouTube. It's hysterical.

It's like, that guy right there is the source of all my humor. It is it's the baseline of it. Tim Thomerson. And apparently he's been in some movies and, but he did this skit, part of a skit was about The Source, that restaurant The Source. He didn't of course name it, but it's funny stuff.

It's, and I was out at one of the conclaves out there in Bakersfield at Dean Ross's house, and I don't know who it was, I think it might have been Dean Ross was talkin' or no, it was, Ron Purcell was talkin' about, he was doing, you know, rattling off lines from this Tim Tomerson skit, and I was like, Oh dude, I gotta talk to you. Awesome. So, yeah, Father Yacht, I drove cross cross country and we listened to that, a fair amount. It it'll pass the time driving through, you know, the flatlands out where you live. Yeah.

That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We we we Kaylee and I got rid of TV right after after we got married, and it's amazing.

I mean, we were never really, like, TV people. Mhmm. But when you get rid of it, it's like something happens to your brain. It's like, I think that it, like, dopes you up. Oh, without a doubt.

And and just, this last weekend, we were we were coming back from South Texas where we did this project. And so we took our time going through the Hill Country, and we stayed in a hotel. And so I flicked the TV on. Kaylee was taking a shower. And it just like after about thirty minutes, you realize that you're just sitting there in the duh position, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just like, wow. This is nuts.

Yeah. I I you know, when I'm out on the road, I'll flick on the TV, you know, because I'm off in a different time zone. I can't sleep. I'll just look at the TV for a while. And the stuff that I've seen on TV, there was this reality show, and for those people that watch TV, maybe they've seen it.

This person, I don't even know how to, it sounds horrible, and I'm not trying to mock it, but there's this person out there that has two heads. Have you seen this? No. Oh my god. It's it's And they made a show out of it?

Yeah. It's life and about this person or people, I guess, they are graduating from high school and where they're gonna go to college. And I'm like, and then they get in a car and they go to drive away and I'm like, oh my god. Which one is steering and which one is like the navigator here? It's like how do it was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen and it's on TV.

And like you hear about this stuff and you're like, no way dude, that couldn't possibly be it was on TV. Yeah. Last year, again, we had gone out of town and Cole, who was working with me at the time, we were flipping channels, and we were some crappy hotel out in San Angelo. And, he's like, dude, have you ever seen Honey Boo Boo? And I'm like, I've I've heard of it.

And so he turned it on. And I was just I was so shocked and appalled. And it was like the the car wreck that you can't turn away from kind of thing. I'm just Oh, I know. How is this entertainment?

What have we what have we sunk to? I don't even know what honey boo boo is it. I don't think I wanna know. It it's just really ignorant hillbilly people acting terribly. Oh, really?

Yeah. Terrible behavior, terrible dysfunctional relationships, and these kids are just, I guess the the little girl was in some pageant. The mother put her in a pageant, and I don't know. It was just bizarre and disturbing. Well, along those lines, I wanna make a movie recommendation.

If you haven't seen it, I highly suggest that you watch it. It's an old movie. I think it's by, Russ Meyer maybe or somebody. Can't really remember, but it's called Mudhoney. Have you seen that?

Mudhoney. Mudhoney. Write it down. Sean, write it down. Anybody that's listening, if there is anybody listening out there, write it down.

Mudhoney. Hey. We have listeners in 61 countries now. Right before we started talking. That's awesome.

I know they're listening. So people around the world, please please, let's watch Mudhoney. It's it's Mudhoney. Brilliant. Mudhoney.

Okay. Yeah. It's it's Dust Bowl. It's I think it came out in 1966. It's like, how did they find these people and how did they get them to act?

Because it's it's also real. Really? Yeah. It's the typical sort of the guy walks up to the house, knocks on the door, his car's broken down, and, you know, the bodacious farmer's daughter, you know, answers the door, and, you know, it goes on from there. You know, it's it's So he enters into a whole another world through this family?

Yeah. I you know, he gets hired on as a hired hand, you know, around the farm. And, you know, he's got a bit of a, a problem with the with the sour mash. And, you know, I I can't remember the exact details of it, but they're they're they're literally swinging from the trees in that movie. Wow.

It's it's really great. So, yeah. Mud, Honey. That calls to mind a movie. I haven't seen it in a couple years, but I wanna watch it again.

Have you have you ever seen Off the Map? No. No. That that's a cool movie. This, this kinda hippie couple and their daughter live out, I think, in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico.

And, this IRS agent comes out to, audit them because they basically have just not been participating in the system. Mhmm. When he gets there, he kinda just goes through this thing and decides he wants to stay. Yeah. I'm gonna, Really cool.

I'm gonna write that down off the map. Yeah. I've watched it multiple times. It's a really cool story. Cool.

Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. So that's about the extent of my, about my media knowledge. I don't I don't go to the movies.

I you know, people say, like, what do you do? They say, oh, you're from Philadelphia. The Eagles. I hate the Eagles. I'm like, dude, I don't care.

I don't care about sports. I know. I I just I just ran into this last week, and the guy was a really nice older guy. He's our client's dad. And he was he was, like, trying to make conversation and talk about the San Antonio Spurs, and I'm like, I don't know anything about it.

I Yeah. Sorry. I'm not trying to be rude, but I don't know anything about sports. Yeah. Not a thing.

But, you know, I I think that's good. I think it's, you know, I get think we're all trying it's just a it's just a mass marketing scheme. Yes. You know, I I and I can't I just can't I just can't get involved in any of that stuff. I went to a, I donated blood one time, and and they give you a a pair of tickets to go see the baseball game, the Philadelphia Phillies.

So I'm sitting up there in the nosebleed section and I think they're playing the Mets or something. And I'm sitting there, I got my Carhartt overalls on and a t shirt and I'm wearing this hat and some kid behind me starts going he starts he starts heckling the batter at bat, I think it was somebody named Sosa, he starts, you Sosa, Sosa you suck. The place is empty, and you can hear this kid's echoing voice echoing at the stadium. pitch, guy hits a home run. Okay.

So he shuts up about that. And then he starts yelling, yo, Amish man. Yo. Hey, Amish man. I'm thinking, Amish man?

Who's Amish man? And I turn around, and him and his and him and his buddies are all looking at me. They're calling me Amish man. I was like, oh, that's it. I'm out of here.

So, I I don't know if I if I left the game then, but, you know, it's like, it's just not my scene, you know? Sports and heckling and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I know. I don't get it. I don't get it.

Yeah, and they're really, you know, they're up there, you know, they're having a good time, but, you know, it's like, you know, I felt like I was being taunted or something. And then, you know, what's next? A response and then, you know, a fight? I'm like, I'm not down for that either. So And and that surprises me because you you've got kind of a a menacing look, you know?

Oh, yeah. You've kinda got that biker look, you know? So I'm surprised the guy's hassling you. Yeah. You know, I have been in a fight since grade, though, so I'm a little out of practice for See, I'm in I'm in this I'm in the same boat.

It just, you know and you see all of this posturing and the macho guys and all that. And I'm like, whatever, dude. Leave me alone. Yeah. I got no time for this.

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. People are crazy. Yep.

Well, cool. I'm I'm glad, glad you came on. Yeah. Thanks. Glad you shared your your story.

Yeah. Been trying to connect our schedules for a while now. Yeah. Two busy guys. Yeah.

Yeah. I wanna, give a shout out to, the, guy that got me into sign painting. A guy by the name of John Daly. And, he'll he'll probably hear this interview. Cool.

Tell you just a bit of that story. I was, I had been doing construction for about, like a year and a half with my buddy's construction company in Upstate New York. And I was kinda had enough of it and didn't really know what I was gonna do next. And then, one day out on the job, I see this old guy, who was probably about the same, according to my calculations, he's about the same age as I am now. But back then he was an old old guy.

He was an old guy then, and he's sitting there and he's striping out this window, he's putting the black outlines on, and I'm just fascinated how this solid black paint came off that brush just razor sharp. And I sat there and I watched him and I, at one point I interrupted him and I said, hey, you know, I don't want to interrupt you, but, you know, I want to talk to you for a minute. Could you could you take a minute to talk to me? And he said, yeah, yeah, sure. You know, we talked a few minutes.

He's like, you know, I'm working. I'll give you my card. You can come by my shop. And, I I you know, I I I'd have a couple conversations with him every once in a while, and, he told me how to go get my job. He said, just walk down the street, and you'll see somebody that needs a sign or has a sign, you think you can do something better, and, you know, tell me you're a sign painter.

And that's what I did, and I got my job. And, I moved away from my hometown up there and came down to Philly, and I never forgot about that guy. And I'd always think of him, and these things would cross my mind, things he had said to me, and, I decided one day to multiple times I tried to find him on the Internet, and of course, you know, he had to been in his eighties by now. So, but one day I found him through reverse directory and, called his house and I said, and this woman answered the phone and I said, we're gonna speak to John Daly. And they said, oh, oh, well, you know, he's retired now.

And I thought, oh, he's retired. Oh, thank God he's retired. That means he's still alive. Right. And I said, could I talk to him?

He said, well, you know, he doesn't hear so well, but I'll put him on. And he got on the phone, he couldn't understand what I was saying, but his wife was sort of a she got back on the phone and I said, I told him my name. I said, my name's Gibbs Connors. And, he said, oh, yeah, okay. What can I do for you?

And he said, I'm a sign painter. He said, oh, okay. And I said, and I ran into you one day. You were painting a sign in North Troy. And, it's probably about 1986.

He said, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I work in Troy. I said, yeah.

I know. It was you. And I said, I just wanna I'm calling to just thank you for taking the time to talk to me that day, and, I wanna be able to come up and see you sometime. And he said, oh yeah, okay. So a couple weeks later my niece was getting married, and I went up there and we sat down and talked about sign painting, and, you know, he he was the same guy that I met back then in 1986, and he was saying all the same stuff.

And I've been back in touch with him, and I've gone up there and I showed him my work, and I've went around and, had him show me all the signs that he painted in our hometown. And he did a tremendous amount of work, and I met him the same way I got he got me into sign painting the same way he got into sign painting. He was walking down the street one day and saw a guy painting a sign and right? Yeah. And, and that guy's name was John Snyder and he was his apprentice for years.

And, so the tradition of sign painting, traditional sign painting as as we call it now, isn't just that we use a brush and paint like it's always been done. It's that tradition that passing it on. So John Snyder passed it on to John Daly, John Daly passed it on to me. Now it's my responsibility to pass it on to somebody else. And after that time I spent with John Daly that afternoon I realized like I've got this responsibility now to John Daly and and the sign painting that, like, like, I was astounded that, like, this came to me.

I'm getting joked up now, talking about it, but Talking good. Like, I couldn't sorry about the profanity, but, like, I couldn't believe, like, this responsibility that also I realized. It's not just about me, making a living. It's about it's about passing this on to, the, you know, the next person that comes along. And wow, what a what an amazing opportunity that is.

And it it hit me out of nowhere that, that, that responsibility of passing it on. It's like, it's almost like having kids, you know, it's like, wow. It's a it's an amazing, amazing opportunity, it's amazing responsibility to, to have come across that completely out of the blue. And I still go up there and I still see him, and, I started after we went around and he showed me all his work, I was taking pictures of everything, I was taking pictures of him in front of the signs he painted, and so I had all these pictures of his work and I can recognize his alphabet versus John Snyder's alphabet. They're very similar, very similar.

He does his s a little bit differently, he does his r's a little bit differently, and he does his o a little bit differently, maybe something about his q, but otherwise you could practically lay them on top of each other. And so I started studying that, and I did practice sheets with, with his alphabet, so now I've inherited Snyder's alphabet to John Daly to me, and I have these practice sheets that I drew up that I can now pass on to somebody else, and it's like, okay, I got it now, I did it, I'm in a position now to really to to even pass on his alphabet. It's like, I'm really stoked, like a whole new chapter in sign painting just opened up for me one day and there I am twenty something years later still doing practice sheets. That's awesome. It was it was an incredible experience and I just had to talk about that a little bit.

No, no, that's super cool Because it's, I think it's something that you can't explain until you experience it kind of thing, you know? Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah.

It's, yeah. It it was a really amazing thing. So, and it, you know, it it just enriched my experience in sign pain and enriched my experience in life, going back to somebody and and thanking them for what they gave me. He had he had all this all this stuff about not being able to support his family, his wife was the breadwinner, and he was like, he was kind of brokenhearted about his career and he put this envelope on the table and he said fifty years in the business, this is all I got to show for it. He was he was completely like, it was like it took us it almost took his soul away.

He was addicted to sign painting. He said, I I work eight days a week, twenty six hours a day, painting signs, and this is all I got to show. And I was like, John, you got so much more to show. Your your your wife loves you. Your kids love you.

I love you. Look at what you've done to the streetscape through New York. You know? It it it, and I I think he heard me with it. But, you know, but still, it was like he he he he was missing something about all that he had contributed to to society and his family and everything else, but, so me going back there, you know, I wanted to give that to him just to say thank you, and I got so much more out of it myself.

It's really amazing. Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing that, man. That's Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I can't, you know, getting choked up about sign painting once again. Hey, man. That's good stuff. That means you're still human.

Yeah. You know, if you don't get choked up at moving things in life, then there's something wrong with you. So so you get clean bill of mental health on my call. Cool. Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Well, next time you're down here, I know you got family in the Dallas area. You have to come come visit and, give me a big enough heads up, and I'll I'll put something together we can work on together or something.

It'd be fun. Yeah. Get something up there that's high up in the air or something crazy. I'll go get out there. I don't know about that.

And I I was looking at pictures that Bob Dewhurst posted a few weeks back on this, like, real janky platform thing. They're hanging off the side of the building. I'm like, oh, you guys are nuts. Yeah. I haven't been out of the climbing up a ladder.

Yeah. You know, that's yeah. Yeah. I you know, I've been doing a lot of work out of a lift lately, and for the four or five hours one day, I felt like a cat that was trying to hold on to a a tree with my toes through my work shoes. And once I realized that that lift weighs 18,000 pounds and it's not going to work, it's not going to tip over, then it started to get fun.

You know? I love working off the lift. Yeah. I feel like I'm on the ground, but man. Yeah.

Some of those platforms, John Arnott, who's down in he's down near Roderick. Uh-huh. Yep. He's he's an old timer that really took me under his wing and taught me a lot of great stuff. And, man, he he that dude's, like, in his seventies, and he would put this horrible makeshift platform thing together and be like, get up there, you know?

And we'd be up there, and he'd be jumping around doing stuff. And I'm, like, losing my marbles. I'm like, I'm so stressed out. Yeah. But, you know, different strokes.

Yeah. When I when I'm up on a plank, I sit down, you know. I hold on to the wall. I sit down. I'm not in they got a 12 inch plank, you know.

I'm not gonna be walking around back and on that thing. I climb up and I sit on it just like the Dutch boy. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Ain't nothing wrong with that. 90% of the time, I I sit on it too. I just like, I got nothing to prove. I just wanna paint the sign and go home. I don't wanna break my neck.

Yep. Yep. Yep. So Alright, dude. Well, we Cool.

Thanks. We'll talk again soon. Thanks for coming on. Great. And thanks for everyone in 61 countries for, for sitting through this and listening to it.

And, great job, Shawn. You bring a tremendous amount to, design painting and sharing it with the world. And I'm happy to know and happy to be your friend. And that right there is why I keep doing this podcast. It's really awesome to be able to talk to some of these other guys that, some of them I've known for years.

Some of them just, have gotten to know in recent times. And, it just it's a really great thing to be able to, not only have these conversations, but to share them with others that are interested in this stuff. And we thank you for tuning in and listening. Wanna give a little plug to our sponsor, Full City Rooster Coffee Roasters. Been seeing quite a few pictures on social media of people enjoying the sign painters blend, that Full City Roosters put together.

And, so if you haven't tried that, give it a try. It's delicious stuff. It really is. Fullcityrooster.com and if you click on the link to buy coffee, they've got it featured right at the top. The sign painters blend.

So give that a shot. I think you'll like it and, spring has sprung so, get yourself out there and paint some things. Talk to you next week. Today's episode of Coffee with a SoundPainter is brought to you by Full City Rooster Coffee Roasters in Dallas, Texas, roasting distinctive coffees from around the world. Sean drinks Full City Rooster coffee every day in the studio.

You can order their coffee online at fullcityrooster.com. Thanks for listening to Coffee with a Signpainter, hosted by Sean Starr. You can find all sorts of info about the show and sign painting, including previous episodes at our website, seanstarr.com.