Contracommon presents Sign painters: the movie with special guest mike meyer

Friday october 30th 7pm

We see them almost every day without a second thought. Weathered by time, distinct characteristics shining through, hand-painted signs are a product of a fascinating 150 year-old American history. What was once a common job has now become a highly specialized trade, a unique craft struggling with technological advances. Sign Painters, directed by Faythe Levine & Sam Macon, stylistically explores this unacknowledged art form through anecdotal accounts from artists across the country including Ira Coyne, Bob Dewhurst, Keith Knecht, Norma Jeane Maloney and Stephen Powers. These vanguards of unseen originality are leading a renaissance with a keen creative purpose and exemplify the working class American success story. Sign Painters celebrates those keeping the tradition intact with a bespoke approach and appreciation for a balance between art and commerce.

Mike Meyer is currently hosting a 4 day sign painting and gold leaf workshop at Contracommon, he will be here selling all the hard to find sign painting brushes, posters, and lettering zines you always wanted to get your hands on!

about Mike Meyer via Colossal Media:
Meyer’s in from Mazeppa, Minnesota — “real America, where you go back in time,” he grins, “with the old cars and the crackheads” — to teach a Hand Lettering and Lettering Effects workshop at Colossal. The four-day master class, like all of his sessions, is sold out.

“I want people to learn everything I know, and more,” says the sign painter. He first learned the trade from his father, a barber in Mazeppa, who painted signs between haircuts. Meyer later went to sign school before heading back to Mazeppa to start his own shop. But today, there’s just one school left in the U.S. and only a handful abroad.

Meyer started teaching at “letterhead meets,” where sign painters from around the world swap stories and skills. At a meeting in London, someone told him he needed to teach, and that he needed to do it for the future of sign painting, so he started running his Better Letters workshops. “I didn’t know how to teach,” he says, “I just started doing what I knew how to do and talking while I did it.”

Four years and 80 workshops later, graffiti writers, tattoo artists, and graphic designers fly across the world to attend Meyer’s workshops. Some are held at his own shop, where he personally chauffeurs students between the airport and the bunks he built for his visitors. More are held on the road, at shops like Colossal’s and in places as far as Poland.

Meyer offers his students stories (his father once gave him a look that eviscerated a “W”) and advice (“draw like a turtle, paint like a rabbit”) along with his lessons, punctuating each with a hearty laugh. He steps in every now and then to quickly and masterfully sketch out a “B” or a “G”. At the end of four days, his class of 20- and 30-somethings is fluent in Gothic, Casual, and script, and each has a grip of lettering effects at their fingertips.

“He’s a legend,” agree two first-timers, a studio painter and a graphic designer, as they stand back to admire their work (beveled renditions of “START” and “TURD,” respectively). “I haven’t pulled a letter in 18 months, and it shows,” laments a chalkboard artist turned UX designer painting a perfect alphabet.

If this is the future of sign painting, we’re in good, paint-splattered hands.

This is a free event open the the public. For a list of related in-person and virtual events, visit our website at contracommon.org. For inquiries, information, or to make a donation, email contact@contracommon.org.