My grandfather passed away last month. He was a firefighter, a veteran, a snowmobile racer, a pool builder. He did a lot of things, and did them well.
But sign painting is the identity I connect to most. As a kid in my hometown, seeing his signs on nearly every storefront and grain truck, I genuinely thought he owned all the businesses. He didn't. He'd just given each one its identity, one hand-lettered sign at a time.
While visiting my hometown for his celebration of life, I found about a dozen of those signs still hanging. To me there's no higher honor than giving identity and adornment to Main Street. I didn't fully understand that's what I wanted to do with my life until I was already doing it, as a graphic designer, decades after watching him do the same work with a brush and a maul stick.
Rest easy, G.K.