The Gentle Revolution Presents: The Pre-Vinylettes' Suffragette Centennial by Meredith Kasabian

P R ES ENTS

AN E XH IBITIO N BY WOM EN, T RAN S , AN D PO S T- BINARY SIGN PAIN TE RS

This publication is issued in conjunction with the exhibition

The Gentle Revolution Presents: The Pre-Vinylettes’ Suffragette Centennial Showing September 26 – October 25, 2020 at Ford Gallery, Portland, Oregon. © Meredith Kasabian, Pre-Vinylite Society, 2020

CREDITS COVER DESIGN

Anna Weber of Astoria Signs LAYOUT DESIGN

Michelle Meng Nguyen EDITOR

Meredith Kasabian

AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S Huge thanks to all the participating artists who worked their butts off to reach an early deadline during a global pandemic to produce the incredible signs you see in this catalog, including the beautiful cover design by Anna Weber of @astoriasigns. Much gratitude to Jeffrey Sincich and Josh Stover of J&S Signs for their generous donation. You can find them @jandssigns and at jandssignpainters.com Special thanks to Michelle Meng Nguyen for taking on the last-minute charge for layout design for this beautiful catalog you hold in your hands. Many thanks to Premier Press, the woman-owned printer of this catalog, for their quality work and for helping us to keep to our goal of being a womxn powered event. A big thank you to Sara McCormick for her support and enthusiasm for this exhibition during her position as Assistant Director and Curator at the Ford Gallery. A special thank you to the Pacific Northwest College of Art for their support of our exhibition and related events. Infinite appreciation for Josh Luke of Best Dressed Signs, for all his love, support, kindness, and patience every time I take on these projects. And to Birdie and Dino, our new little lights. The Gentle Revolution Presents: The Pre-Vinylettes’ Suffragettes Centennial exhibition is funded in part by the Regional Arts & Culture Council of Portland, Oregon.

CURATORIAL STATEMENT As a follow-up to the world’s first all-women’s sign painting exhibition—2017’s The Pre-Vinylette Society: An International Showcase of Women Sign Painters— The Gentle Revolution is very pleased to present The Pre-Vinylettes’ Suffragette Centennial, a unique exhibition of hand painted signs made exclusively by women, trans, and post-binary sign painters in the commemorative spirit of this landmark anniversary in the history of women’s rights. The exhibition features an international array of more than seventy-five artists, whose sign work presents a wide range of experience, skill, and technique. The Pre-Vinylettes’ Suffragette Centennial is intended as both a celebration and a critique of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which granted American women the right to vote in 1920. While this feminist achievement is universally lauded as a success, many of the Pre-Vinylette artists use this occasion to address the marginalization and suppression of suffrage that continues to this day for many women of color in America. In the spirit of critical and intersectional feminism, this exhibition features hand painted signs that honor, critique, analyze, and / or reimagine how far women and nonmen have come in the last century and how far we have yet to go. As this exhibition takes place during a significant and contentious American election season, the artists take this opportunity to explore political topics, topics of women’s, trans’, and post-binary empowerment, and themes of positive change for a healthier world. The inspiration for this exhibition comes from Remedios Rapoport’s Gentle Revolution Mobile, a kinetic sign sculpture that encompasses the viewer with changing “word portrait” messages of healthy social change, which was a centerpiece of the 2017 Pre-Vinylette exhibition at Chicago Art Department. The mobile and messages of The Gentle Revolution manifesto serve as a platform for the 2020 PreVinylettes’ Suffragette Centennial exhibition at Ford Gallery. The exhibition runs from September 26 through October 25, 2020 at Ford Gallery in Portland, Oregon and is organized by Shelby Rodeffer, Meredith Kasabian, and Remedios Rapoport.

CURATOR BIOS MEREDITH KASABIAN is a writer, editor, curator, and sign painter in Boston, Massachusetts. She runs Best Dressed Signs with her husband, Josh Luke, and is co-founder and curator for the Pre-Vinylite Society. Since 2011, she has curated several Pre-Vinylite Society exhibitions in Boston, New York, Chicago, and London and is the editor-in-chief for the Pre-Vinylite Society Journal. Her writing appears in various publications, including Advertising and Public Memory: Social, Cultural and Historical Perspectives on Ghost Signs, published by Routledge Press. Meredith holds a Master’s degree in English Literature from Boston College and is constantly expanding her research on the ways in which historical signage and applied arts inform the culture of our day. She often gives talks on the cultural and historical contexts of signs and is currently working on several Pre-Vinylite Society projects. meredithkasabian.com SHELBY RODEFFER (she/her) is a Chicago-based visual artist, educator, and tradesperson. Raised in Nashville, Tennessee, she embraces signs of the human hand in both personal and professional work. Her practice employs traditional sign making techniques both as a means of craft preservation and as a practical form of artistic expression. In addition to creating personal and commissioned art, Shelby currently teaches youth in the University of Chicago Arts Incubator Design Apprenticeship Program (DAP), a mentorship and skill-building initiative that encourages teens and young adults to use design to improve the physical and social conditions of their community. Shelby’s current class of DAP mentees are partnering with local non-profit, My Block, My Hood, My City to create new block club signs for neighborhoods on the south and west side of Chicago, using positive messaging to promote community pride, cohesion, and action. shelbyrodeffer.com

Oregon born REMEDIOS RAPOPORT is a Pacific Northwest artist working from her Portland studio. In 1988, Rapoport began a study of Filete Porteño from the masters in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After receiving her BFA degree in 1989 from the Pacific Northwest College of Art, she continued utilizing Filete within her paintings and sculptures. With support from the Oregon Arts Commission and the Regional Arts and Culture Council of Portland, her work has been collected and exhibited in national and international museums and galleries. Exhibitions have taken her work to communities including Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Chicago, and Buenos Aires. Working as a sign painter and muralist propelled her career with funding and skill building projects that allowed her to develop new ways to be a painter. Her fine art paintings began to develop into dimensional wall sculptures and kinetic sculptures, combining letter forms, pictorials, and found objects intertwined with Argentine Filete Porteño. Word Portraits became a description for this new genre of art emerging from her work, which reflects her Gentle Revolution Manifesto values. Her exhibitions are created for dialog about healthy change within local and global communities, while asking others to participate in this process. remediosrapoport.com

SIGNS, SPECTACLE, AND SUPPRESSION IN THE PROBLEMATIC HISTORY OF WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE IN AMERICA by MEREDITH KASABIAN The Pre-Vinylettes’ Suffragette Centennial is an exhibition that commemorates the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which granted American citizens the right to vote regardless of sex. As sign painters, the Pre-Vinylettes are uniquely positioned to comment on this landmark anniversary as lettering, design, and art played a large role in bringing mass attention to the issue of women’s suffrage in America. The 1913 Suffrage Parade on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC was a massive spectacle that brought more awareness to the issue of women’s rights in America (Fig.1). The “Silent Sentinels,” women who held banners in front of the White House every day for more than two years, demonstrated the power of words in their visual form (Fig. 2). While these early twentieth century performances widened the reach of women’s issues, the fact that many American women of color did not enjoy the right to vote for many decades after 1920 continues to elude the populace today. Voter suppression in its many forms has denied people of color the right to exercise their vote since the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, which extended the vote to all male citizens, regardless of their “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” This exhibition aims to commemorate and contextualize the history and currency of women’s suffrage with a keen eye to its severe and racist limitations and to further the conversation about the role that signs, art, and design can play in ensuring true equal justice for all Americans.

Fig. 1: Cover of the program for the National American Women’s Suffrage Association procession, 1913.

The history of women’s rights in America is said to have begun in July 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention when approximately three hundred abolitionists and women’s rights activists convened to discuss the end of slavery and the future of universal suffrage for all Americans. The convention, which included speeches by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass, resulted in the signing of the Declaration of Sentiments, a document that details the grievances of women and demands their right to consent to the laws they are subjected to. The Seneca Falls Convention led to a nationwide movement for women’s rights with annual conventions that continued until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. Fig. 2: Silent Sentinel protesting in front of the White House, ca. 1917—1919.

Fig. 3: Lifting As We Climb banner, ca. 1924. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. See Michelle Meng Nguyen’s reproduction on page 39.

The movement regained speed after the war ended but began to splinter around 1869 when disagreements about the Fifteenth Amendment, which granted Black males the right to vote while denying women of all races the same right, brought racist issues to light. The idea that Black men would have the vote before white women did brought race to the forefront of the women’s rights movement, with many prominent white leaders making overtly racist statements in their arguments against the Fifteenth Amendment. According to Louise Michele Newman, in White Women’s Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States: Where white suffragists conceived of the enfranchisement of (white) women as an antidote to manpower, black suffragists hoped that (black) women’s enfranchisement would serve as an antidote to racism. White advocates of woman suffrage emphasized the role that they—elite white women—could play in restoring politics to its former glory and in reforming society to rid it of immoral elements, symbolized for whites by the political activities they associated with blacks and immigrants. Blacks never held this view of suffrage—they did not see eighteenth century republicanism as some golden age of politics, since the past for them only contained evidence of political slavery, economic exploitation, racism, and social injustice. 63 While the movement for women’s suffrage began in solidarity with the abolition movement, once the Civil War ended, the true ambitions of the elite white women at its helm came to the forefront, dividing the movement between those who fought for the Fifteenth Amendment and those who fought against it.

The splintered movement gave rise to several factions, including the establishment of various Black women’s clubs, whose goals, according to Evette Dionne, author of Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box, included suffrage, which was important “as a tool to help them redress larger issues, such as abuse in the judicial system, being lynched, and not being able to get ahead financially. Getting the right to vote wasn’t the end goal [however]; improving the lives of African Americans was.” The aim of Black women’s clubs, including the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), which was founded in 1896 by Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Frances E.W. Harper, and others, was to address housing, education, healthcare, and working conditions in Black communities. The NACW sought to uplift the Black community and chose the motto “Lifting as We Climb” as a reminder to its members that the wellbeing of their community was the club’s main priority (Fig. 3). As the fight for women’s suffrage in America remained segregated, it began to take on a more urgent tone in the twentieth century. The return of Alice Paul to the United States from England, where she fought side by side with British suffragists whose civil disobedience led to

prison sentences and forced feeding, marked a change in the fight for women’s suffrage in America. Under Paul’s leadership, suffragists organized the parade on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC—the first major suffrage spectacle in the US (Fig. 4). The parade included thousands of women, most of whom were dressed in white, and was led by lawyer and activist Inez Milholland Boissevain dressed in a white cape atop a white horse (Fig. 5). The procession featured floats and marching bands, with women walking in formation holding signs and banners that shouted their demands in bold lettering. In keeping with the spirit of racism that prevailed in 1913 America, the parade was segregated, with Black women marching separately and behind white women, despite their associations. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, the famous anti-lynching activist, was a member of the Illinois delegation and traveled to Washington with her delegation to join in the parade. When she was informed that the march would be segregated and that she would not be able to walk with her colleagues but would be forced to walk at the back of the parade, she was resolute. Dionne describes the scene when Wells-Barnett took a stand against the racist segregation of the 1913 Suffrage Parade:

When the parade officially got underway, Wells-Barnett was nowhere to be found. Illinois delegates assumed that she’d left because she didn’t want to walk in a segregated delegation, but in actuality, she’d only slipped out of the parade line. She waited patiently and quietly, hiding among the 250,000 spectators watching the parade. When the Illinois delegation got close enough, she jumped back into the procession and marched between two white women who were carrying the Illinois delegation signage. A photo of Wells-Barnett flanked by two white suffragists appeared in the Chicago Daily Tribune, capturing the moment that she defied orders and took her rightful place in history.

The photograph itself was a kind of spectacle, shedding light on the racism made so apparent in the shock of Ida B. Wells-Barnett simply walking amongst her colleagues (Fig. 6). While it would still be seven years before the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the 1913 Suffrage Parade marked a significant turning point in the fight for women’s suffrage. The fight continued and the amendment was officially ratified on August 26, 1920, ostensibly giving the right to vote to nearly twenty-six million American women. The reality, however, is that the same tactics of voter suppression that had kept Black men from the voting booths since the Jim Crow era began in the 1870s—poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses, to name a few—also affected Black women after 1920. It was not until the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which “rendered illegal numerous discriminatory

Fig. 4: The Women’s Suffrage Parade, Washington, DC, 1913.

barriers to effective political participation by African Americans and mandated federal review of all new voting regulations so that it would be possible to determine whether their use would perpetuate voting discrimination” that Black women had better access to exercise their right to vote (Alexander 47). However, as with many progressive strides in America, the provisions of the Voting Rights Act have been chipped away at, while voter suppression tactics like voter ID laws and felony disenfranchisement in the age of mass incarceration have successfully kept large numbers of Black voters from the polling booths. In the age of the Black Lives Matter movement and other social and racial justice causes, protest signs and lettering play a major role in getting the message out to a larger audience, creating a spectacle that demonstrates the power of visual language. While some may view the display of signs and art as merely performative, it is the role artists to communicate and amplify the issues so that tangible, positive change can be made. The Pre-Vinylettes’ Suffragette Centennial showcases women, trans, and non-binary sign painters from many countries and many backgrounds whose work voices, provokes, and enlightens the challenging history of this milestone commemoration of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Fig. 5: Inez Milholland Boissevain leading the Suffrage Parade, 1913.

WORKS CI TED Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York, London: The New Press: 2020. Print. Dionne, Evette. Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box. New York: Viking, 2020. Print. Newman, Louise Michele. White Women’s Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Print.

Fig. 6: Ida B. Wells-Barnett at the Suffrage Parade. The photo appeared in the Chicago Daily Tribune, May 1913.

ALICE MAZZILLI womaNOWoman Fabric paint on T-shirt, 27 cm diameter IG: @alicemazzilli

Alice Mazzilli is a professional calligrapher and lettering artist with a background in graffiti, sign painting, and graphic design. Her work is inspired by the history of writing, the journey from the symbol to the letterform. Her current exploration involves translating movement and rhythm into form, alongside street art and a consideration of the future and evolution of our writing system. This piece is a protest T-shirt. “Her” stands for femininity. The T-shirt represents daily life, what the suffragettes fought for. It’s something we should stand for on a daily basis, not just when the situation gets out of control.

We might have different backgrounds, opinions, and tastes but we have to stick together regarding our rights. womaNOWoman: it’s woman NOW woman. We have to be conscious of the baggage we carry, engraved in our genes, thousands of years of being considered less than men. It’s our responsibility now to rewrite who we want to be, asking ourselves who we really are. What do you stand for?

ALICJA POLACHEK Forward into Light, 2020 Enamel, 22k gold leaf, pink quartz mother of pearl, cat’s eye mother of pearl, and smalts on glass, 38.1 x 50.8 cm IG: @alicjaplz • alicjapolachek.com

Alicja Polachek is a sign painter and gold leaf artist based in Las Vegas, Nevada. She began painting signs in the spring of 2003 for numerous storefronts and restaurants around San Francisco, California. In 2014, she attended Los Angeles Trade Technical College, where she studied Sign Graphics and Visual Communications, developing her interest in layout and modern design. It was here she developed an enthusiasm for working with gold leaf. Polachek now works almost exclusively with precious metals on glass.

Forward into Light is one of two pieces by Polachek for The Pre-Vinylettes’ Suffragette Centennial exhibition. Its phrasing is taken from the adopted motto of the National Woman’s Party, “Forward out of darkness, leave behind the night; forward out of error, forward into light.”

ALWYN L’HOIR 100 Years Women’s Votes Acrylic on board, 16” x 24” AlwynLhoirArt.com

I’m essentially a folk artist; I usually incorporate elements from the natural world into my paintings. My intent is to bring a greater recognition of what the natural world offers us. It’s often a theme I use to describe an opportunity for evolution, or to illustrate how a natural progression through time might look. I’ve been a sign painter, scenic artist, and creator of 3D environments for theater, working for the Original Renaissance Pleasure Faire since 1990. In my personal work, my themes tend to be political and I use my work to fund charities in underprivileged communities. I’ve had

work shown in galleries in Seattle, Berkeley, and Vallejo. I’m also a musician, photographer, author, gardener, and home builder, so I could technically be called a Renaissance Woman, beyond my employment in the sign field! My concept for this piece is to show some of the evolution of women’s suffrage, which started far before the 1920s. In this country, the fight for women’s suffrage harkens back to the abolitionists before the Civil War. Today’s feminist luminaries, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are here because of the blossoming of the work of our forebears in the movement.

AMANDA BEARD GARCIA Stay Soft, Take No Shit Acrylic on wood, 18” x 18” IG: @amandabeardgarcia • likeminddesign.com

Amanda Beard Garcia is a graphic designer, illustrator, letterer, and principal of Likemind Design, a branding and custom mural studio based north of Boston, Massachusetts. When she’s not creating, you can usually find her teaching, wandering rock concerts, home-improving, and being trailed by her Corgi (and mascot), Pica.

“Stay soft, take no shit” is an ongoing reminder to us all that femininity and fortitude are not mutually exclusive.

AMY GOODWIN Bloom Free Enamel on dibond, 20” x 30” IG: @amy.goodwin.signwriter • a-goodwin.com

Amy Goodwin is a traditional signwriter and lecturer based in Cornwall, UK. Her work is heavily inspired by her upbringing traveling steam fairgrounds in the West Country, and she now works predominantly in the fairground, circus and heritage industries. In 2020, she was awarded a practice-led PhD for her work re-establishing the identities of five twentieth century fairground-women through the construction of a series of illustrated spaces in which signwriting was utilized to tell their stories.

Stemming from the narrative fragment that American women showed off their bloomers during the suffrage movement, this sign both celebrates and highlights women’s continued plight. Inspired by a 1920s advertisement for women’s bloomers and the use of both roses and the bluebird by the American suffrage movement, this sign makes a (political) statement which is prevalent both in 1920 and today: that it is time for all women to “bloom free.”

ASHLEY FUNDORA Escucha a lxs Mujeres / Listen to Womxn Enamel and oil on wood, 18 x 20” IG: @ashleyfun

Ashley Maria Fundora is a multidisciplinary visual artist and sign painter originally from Miami, Florida, currently living and working in Emeryville, California. In response to the current global dialogue, this piece communicates the need for systemic change. I believe that listening to womxn is necessary in order to work towards creating a more equal and just world together. I drew this statement as shadow type with the English version in a perspective shade and the cast shade reading the Spanish translation, “Escucha a lxs Mujeres,” reflecting the inclusivity and intersectionality I hope to uphold as a Latina child

of immigrant parents. I used the shadow type to express the tension regularly at play between my nationality and ethnicity. By visually representing the cast shade of “Listen to Womxn” as the Spanish translation, I aim to point out that racial and ethnic minorities were only able to actually exercise their right to vote decades after the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in the United States. This piece shines a light on my Latin American roots and honors the voices of womxn in my life and history who have had the courage to listen, and more importantly, to make their voices heard.

CAMILA BORRERO ARIAS Clear Eyes Enamel on wood, 36.5 x 46 cm IG: @camitype

Camila Borrero Arias aka “Camitype” is an industrial designer, sign painter, muralist, artist, and business owner based in Panamá City, Panama. She balances her time between managing her coffee shop and creating murals in her city. The constant interactions with entrepreneurs serve as inspiration for her work, which has stemmed from climate change posters in the Biomuseum to canal-inspired murals for shipping companies. Camila’s main focus is to create projects that rescue the culture and value of Panamanian sign-painting identity.

The suffragists rose and fought for what they knew was a right they deserved, even though others didn’t see it that way. This piece serves as a reminder to always question the rules that are imposed in society: what we see and what we don’t want to see. The phrase is inspired by the words of drag superstar Ru Paul, who has been fighting for LGBTQ+ rights since the 1980s and has inspired thousands to raise their voices and feel proud of who they are.

CAROL CHAPEL The Sisters Acrylic on canvas, 8” x 8” carolchapel.com

Married living in rural Benton County, I no longer produce signs commercially. I have returned to my pursuit of fine art after about 30 years of sign design and production. Lettering and words still occasionally appear in my artwork. My sign company was Watermark Signs in Corvallis, Oregon.

There were 3 paintings. Three Sisters. One sold. So now there are two. I’ll just call them The Sisters. Resist and Insist. In these times, those two sisters are a political statement. One we should each ascribe to.

DEBRA STYER Self Respecting Woman Enamel on wood, 18” x 24” IG: @debrastyer • debrastyer.com

I’m Debra Styer, an illustrator and portrait painter from San Francisco. My husband, Damon owns New Bohemia Signs, where I work as the assistant manager. I have always been fascinated by signs and history, and I feel privileged to be able to work at a place that keeps such a great tradition alive. Much of my creative energy is directed toward watercolor illustration and I don’t often work with sign painting enamels, but I was up for the challenge for the Pre-Vinylettes Show.

My piece, Self Respecting Woman, is my ode to all the women (and men) still fighting the long and hard fight for equal rights and a chance to be heard and taken seriously. It’s been one hundred years since women earned the right to vote. We must remember to keep our voices strong and help raise the voices that are still fighting to be heard.

ELENA ALBERTONI UNITY—Stand and Rise Together Enamel and 23k gold leaf on metal plate, 13” diameter IG: @letterista • letteria.berlin

Elena is an Italian designer with a particular interest in crafts and letterforms. As an active member of the Berlin type scene, she has organized numerous workshops and events. She runs a studio for sign painting, type design, and lettering called La Letteria, a pun on the Italian word “Latteria” (dairy), that represents the interest in designing everyday things, trying to enhance the ordinary.

Inspired by our own community and the supportive experience within the Pre-Vinylettes group, for this piece, I put the focus on the concept that unity is our strength. We need to embrace diversity and make sure not to leave any woman behind. The circular plate is visually reminiscent of the campaign buttons from the different suffragette organizations in the US and UK, which often featured gold elements alongside the iconic colors, purple and green.

EM WILLIAMS Work Like A Woman Human 18k gold leaf and enamel on glass, 290 x 465 mm IG: @lettersbyem.studio • lettersbyem.studio

Em Williams of Letters by Em is an artist and sign painter based in Kent, UK. Em not only paints but also holds a Masters’ degree in Typeface Design and has over ten years of experience working commercially as a brand, print, and typeface designer. The love for, and use of type and typography, has always been at the forefront of her work—only now it’s applied with paint and gold leaf.

historically been seen as “female” or signified “weakness.” This piece inspires a way of being that is full of empathy, compassion, resilience, fairness, vulnerability, collaboration, generosity, integrity and kindness: qualities that should be celebrated and injected into all aspects of our personal and working lives, towards ourselves and others alike, no matter what your sex, gender, race or religious beliefs are.

As a testament to those who have worked hard and had the courage to fight for change, this piece serves as a reminder for us to continue the battle for equality, where in so many forms it is yet to be resolved, by embracing virtues that have

ERIN BRADLEY-SCOTT Empathy—2020 Poster paint and collage on paper , 20” x 30” IG: @ebscottsigns

Erin Bradley-Scott is a signwriter, type designer, and mural artist from Glasgow, Scotland. She has been working as a signwriter since 2016, and in 2019, formed COBOLT, a collective of four artists/designers (all female) who specialize in large scale murals in the UK. She has studied and appreciates traditional sign writing techniques, seeking to combine these methods with a contemporary approach to hand lettering. Empathy is essential in the fight for complete gender equality and true female empowerment. Capitalism does not value the capacity to empathize enough, instead promoting

individualism and competitiveness, pitting human beings against each other, when we should seek to find common ground, understanding, and compassion in order to progress together. Some believe that empathy is a natural trait that cannot be learned but this is a misconception. In Denmark, empathy has been a compulsory element of the school curriculum since 1993. Denmark is ranked within the top three happiest countries in the world and second in the EU on the Gender Equality Index. If we were all to learn and practice empathy, perhaps we could share Denmark’s achievements in realizing gender equality, making for a fairer, happier, and more equal society for everyone.

ESTHER NORTH Oh Far Far More 23k gold leaf, acrylic, and enamel on wood, 48 x 70 cm IG: @sylviesigns • sylviesigns.com

Esther North of Sylvie Signs is an artist and sign painter in Bedfordshire, England. When describing the violence of forcible feeding endured by incarcerated suffragettes on hunger strike, Sylvia Pankhurst stated that, for the crime of breaking a £3 window, “the government had had their pound of flesh, and far more, oh, far, far more.” This piece honors the bravery and sacrifice of the suffragettes, in both the UK and the US. It also acknowledges the limitations of the early legislation on both sides of the Atlantic and how much more there was, and is, to be done to

enfranchise people of color, working class people, disabled people, and all marginalized groups who continue to face challenges in exercising their right to vote. Pankhurst was an ardent socialist, anti-fascist and anti-colonialist, who devoted her life to dismantling systems of oppression, so hopefully she wouldn’t mind being quoted out of context for this purpose. The sign references the Holloway brooch, designed by Sylvia Pankhurst and worn by suffragettes who had been imprisoned in the infamous women’s prison. It features directionally burnished champagne gold beveled letters to echo the portcullis design, and the broad arrow in the suffragette colors of purple and green.

GINA FERRARA Votes for Women Hand painted art glass and mixed metals, 16” diameter IG: @ginacatherineferrara

Gina Ferrara is a stained-glass artist and sign painter originally from the Philadelphia area. She currently resides in Detroit, Michigan. This piece was inspired by a suffrage badge with the words “Votes for Women.” I wanted to update it to reflect today’s inclusive and intersectional values. I used a braid as the primary focal point to emphasize unity and strength.

The piece was made by the Tiffany Method of stained glass, which uses copper foil wrapped around individual, hand cut glass pieces, which are soldered together.

HANA SUNNY WHALER Femaleness Enamel and gold leaf on dibond, 650 mm diameter IG: @hanasunnystudio • @alphabeticsanonymous • @tactilecollective

Hana Sunny Whaler is a signwriter based in South East London. Over the course of her six years in the trade, Hana has thrown herself into the international signwriting community, regularly attending Letterheads events and participating in numerous solo and group shows. Hana also organizes events and exhibitions of her own in collaboration with other signwriters, as one half of Tactile Collective, and a core member of Alphabetics Anonymous sign-gang, as well as its sister counterpart Galphabetics, which aims to encourage women in the trade. For this exhibition, Hana chose to bring to life the words of anti-FGM campaigner and feminist Nimko Ali, author of the book, What We’re Told Not to Talk About (But We’re

Going to Anyway). The book is split into four chapters: Periods, Orgasms, Pregnancy, and Menopause. This incredible body of work looks at the female experience on these four topics, from the mouths of women themselves— women of all ages, races, religions, and social status. This piece aims to look at what joins and binds women, the intangible, invisible “something” we can find in our shared experience, and celebrates the collective strength and sisterhood found in the hardships all women face around the world.

HEIDI TULLMANN A Spell for the Times Enamel and gold leaf on wood, 20” x 30” IG: @HandsomeHandSigns

I am currently based in Northern California and run a sign shop in a small town. I like to cook, snuggle my pig bull, and spend lots of time in the wilderness. Learning how to step into personal power is a terrifying journey, one which I am relieved to be on with so many amazing women. In moments like these—moments of genocide, denial, greed, and revolt—finding the words is difficult for me. Making a statement for this show felt impossible, so I made a map to evoke stability and I consider it a spell.

We can take cues from nature on how to heal, and from water on how to shape change (thank you Adrienne Maree Brown!). An embraced duality leads to reflection, then to interdependence. I believe that truth, no matter how ugly, is beautiful. When we belong, we do less harm.

HELEN INGHAM Malala Enamel on wood, 15” x 28” IG: @hiartzpress

I am a letterpress printer, signwriter and musician living in Luton, England. I teach letterpress printing and run an informal signwriting club for staff and students at Central Saint Martins College in London. I have a passion for lettering, traditional graphic arts, and visual communication, in particular the vernacular and outsider art. Malala Yousufzadi is from the Swat Valley in Pakistan. She is a campaigner for women’s education and came to prominence following an assassination attempt by the Taliban when she was a teenager because she was going to school, which was against laws imposed by the Taliban.

She is a pacifist and passionately believes education is the key to progress and peace. Her credo is “Books not Bullets.” She has since won a Nobel Peace Prize and has recently completed a first degree at Oxford University. This piece is painted in the style of the highly decorated trucks that can be seen in Pakistan. Needless to say, the truck drivers and the painting teams they commission are all male, so I thought this would be an interesting approach, given Malala’s desire for equality within her culture.

JESS MALANE Pre-Vinylettes’ Suffragette Centennial Enamel on wood, 13” x 22.5” IG: @jessmalane

I’m Jess, my pronouns are she /her. I am based in Los Angeles and have been painting signs for a living for the past year. My inspiration to continue to paint during these crazy times is reflective in this quote from Margaret Kilgallen: “I especially hope to inspire young women because I often feel like so much emphasis is put on how beautiful you are or how thin you are, and not a lot of emphasis is put on how

smart you are and what you can do. I’d like to change the emphasis of what’s important while looking at a woman.” Another source of inspiration comes from the landscape and history of signwriting in Southern California.

JESS MARSH WISSEMANN VOTE! 23k gold leaf on glass, 8.5” x 18” Corn on earth, 8 acres. Aerial photo credit: Jamie Malcolm Brown IG: @hiredhandsigns • hiredhandsigns.com

Jess Marsh Wissemann is a sign painter, muralist, and designer based in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. She got her start as a sign painter by creating hand-crafted signs to advertise for her family’s farm and corn maze. Since then, her interest in the history and traditions of the trade and her love of lettering have led her to pursue sign painting as both a profession and an artistic practice.

ages about the history of voting in the United States, with particular emphasis on the achievements of the women’s suffrage movement, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The game also challenges visitors to confront instances of voter suppression that continue to this day as they attempt to navigate the maze and “win” the game by casting their vote.

This gilded piece is a to-scale model of an eight-acre corn maze I designed, which is currently a living, growing artwork, open for exploration in Sunderland, Massachusetts. Within the cornfield, an interactive game educates visitors of all

JORGE JACOBS Work It Enamel on wood, 15.5” x 24” IG: @signsbyjorge

Born and bred in Luton, England, I have been painting signs professionally for two years and work under the handle Signs by Jorge. I discovered lettering and sign writing in my final year at university and have not stopped with it since. It’s been a pleasure to participate in this exhibition and I have really enjoyed making my piece. I have painted lyrics from the song “Work It” by Missy Elliot from her Under Construction album. This song is about female empowerment and these lyrics really stand out to me, especially as the hip hop world (and so many others) are dominated by men. I have thought about

these words a lot wherever my career has taken me and they’re just as important now as they have ever been. No matter where you come from, your race or your sexuality, etc. It is important to know that you are important.

JULIE AUCLAIR-EIKMIER & TONIA EIKMEIER-AUCLAIR On the Record Enamel on hand (steam) bent poplar wood banners mounted on an alu-panel, 20” x 31.5” IG: @graphicjules • graphicjules.net GraphicJules was founded by Julie Auclair-Eikmier along with co-founder and creative partner of nineteen years, my wife Tonia. I have been a chalkboard artist since 2001, since my early career as a store artist at a natural foods market, creating hand drawn and hand lettered chalkboards. In 2012, I took a sign painting workshop at New Bohemia Signs in San Francisco and once I started brush lettering, I was hooked! From there I started to incorporate sign painting more into my freelance business. Currently I am a digital designer, chalkboard artist, and sign painter. If you are ever in the Santa Cruz or Capitola area you can see my A-frame chalkboards and restaurants signs throughout.

Inspiration for this project came from my wife, a St. Louis native, who was drawn to the quote of Martha Gellhorn (also from St. Louis) and how it related to today’s political climate. To honor the suffragette movement, this quote felt very poignant. We tried to incorporate the handmade sashes women wore during protests and give our piece a threedimensional feel by steam bending poplar wood by hand. It was a very long tedious process but definitely a labor of love.

KELLY GOLDEN We Hope for Better Things Enamel on wood, 13.5” x 21.25” IG: @kellygolden • kellygoldensigns.com

Kelly Golden is a sign painter living and working in Detroit, MI. On June 11, 1805, Detroit suffered a fire that burned nearly every building to the ground. From this momentous event, the city’s flag emerged. Depicted, we see two women: one weeps over the still-burning ruins, and the other gestures towards a brighter future where a new city rises in its place. We also see the city’s two Latin mottos: “Speramus Meliora” and “Resurget Cineribus,” meaning “We Hope for Better Things” and “It Will Rise from the Ashes.” I’ve always loved the flag and think often of how relevant its messages are today.

When things fall apart, we hope. We believe that change can and will come. We reflect on our past, ground ourselves in the present, and begin to radically imagine a better and more just future for all. And while hope surely isn’t enough, I think it’s a great place to start.

KELSEY DALTON Votes for Women 23k gold leaf and enamel on glue chipped glass, 18” diameter IG: heartandbonesigns • chicagosignpainters.com

Kelsey Dalton is a sign painter based in Chicago, Illinois. She co-owns Heart & Bone Signs and Electro Pepper Gallery. She holds an M.A. in Art Administration and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was the recent recipient of an Emerging Research Fellow grant from the Academic Advisory Council for Signage Research and Education (AACSRE). For this piece, I referenced the “Votes for Women” slogan commonly used in protest materials during the suffragette movement in the United States from 1840-1920. I was inspired to scale up a common domestic object and

rework its materiality in the form of a glue chipped, gold leaf sign, a technique made and used predominantly by men during the same time period. In doing so, I aim to point out the absurdity between the phrase “men’s work” and “women’s work” and amplify the importance of women’s labor, then and now. It’s important to note that the 19th Amendment excluded women of color and that subsequent women’s liberation movements have only recently made progress towards intersectional justice.

KIRSTEN BAUER The Master’s Tools Enamel on acrylic panel, 19” x 20” IG: kirsten.m.bauer • kirstenbauer.com

Kirsten Bauer is a multidisciplinary artist and sign painter with a background in art history and museum work. She graduated in 2018 from the Sign Graphics program at Los Angeles Trade Technical Community College. She currently works as a graphic designer at an electrical sign company in Portland, Oregon, and hand paints signs in her spare time. This quote is from Audre Lorde’s essay “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” from her 1984 book Sister Outsider. In making this piece, I wanted to specifically highlight the words of a Black intersectional feminist writer and poet. Lorde famously also wrote, “I am

not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” Visually, I thought it would be interesting to juxtapose these powerful words against the more restrained and “gentle” imagery of Victorian era advertising, floriography, and color symbolism.

KRISTEN RAMSEY Grab Them by the Ballot Enamel on wood, 20” x 22” IG: @kristenramseyart

Kristen is a self-taught artist who creates brightly colored art pieces of a flat, graphic, illustrative nature that often carry heartfelt messages expressed through hand painted text. Her work often includes vintage-inspired imagery of hands and hearts and has been described as “pop folk art.” This piece is a play on words that reclaims the power of women to “grab them by the ballot,” in response to Trump’s sexist statement caught on audio where he describes grabbing women by their private parts. Women in this society have long faced unequal treatment, and with the hundred-year anniversary of women winning the right to vote, we consider

how women are still being treated unequally, especially with the greater suppression of minority women voters. The black, feminine hand represents BIPOC and it suggests that we as women still have a battle to wage in this arena in continuing to exercise our right to vote and ensuring that our minority sisters have equal access to voting as well.

LOUISE TODD Forget-Us-Not 23.5k gold leaf, enamel, rope, tassels and fringe trim on artist canvas board, 20” x 30” IG: @louisetoddlettering

Louise Todd is a freelance graphic designer based in Dumfries, Scotland. In 2017, she took part in a one-day signwriting class with Ciaran Globel and Rachel E. Millar during the Graphic Design Festival in Glasgow, Scotland. She was instantly hooked and has sought out further workshops and events ever since. For this piece, I wanted to celebrate the suffragettes of both the UK and US for the fight they so bravely fought for women’s equality and right to vote. It also serves as a reminder (using imagery of forget-me-not flowers) that we mustn’t forget or leave anyone out, no matter what race, sex or gender they are.

This piece is inspired by the historical purple, white, and green silk banners and “votes for women” badges used during the suffragette campaign.

MICHELLE “MENG” NGUYEN Lifting As We Climb Enamel and 18k gold leaf on wood, 9” x 12” IG: @allthingsmeng • michellemeng.com

Michelle Meng Nguyen is a San Francisco based designer / sign painter currently working at New Bohemia Signs and also building up her own community of clients. She looks to her peers, vintage packaging, and hand painted signage in other countries, especially Viet Nam where her family is from—for color, layout, and lettering inspiration. This piece is a reproduction of a banner from the National Association of Colored Women, an amalgamation of several groups that was formed by Black women during the growing white supremacy and classism within the women’s

suffrage movement in America. With this motto, they sought to fight for women’s rights as well as to “uplift” and improve the lives of Black Americans in a time of much racism, segregation, and oppression. Since the struggles and contributions of Black women are often overlooked in the history of women’s suffrage, this is where I wanted to focus my piece. After seeing this inspirational banner, originally hand painted on purple silk in gold paint with gold fringes, I immediately wanted to replicate it through my own means of creating, with wood, paint, and gold leaf.

MILLIE RATCLIFF I Am What you Call a Hooligan 23k gold, 12k white gold, mother of pearl shell, glitter, and enamel on glass, 12.5” x 17.5” IG: @millsborough

Millie Ratcliff is a novice sign painter and gilder from London, UK. She practices part-time, alongside a career in recruitment. As a lover of shiny things, Millie was naturally drawn to gilding on glass. Encouragement from some Pre-Vinylettes at a Letterhead convention in London solidified her passion for the craft. While on a speaking tour in the US in 1909, Emmeline Pankhurst opened a meeting with the line, “I am what you call a hooligan,” rousing a wave of laughter from the crowd. She was poking fun at the stereotype of the suffragette, in contrast to her dignified, “ladylike” demeanor and feminine

clothing: a purple velvet dress lined in green. Although Ms. Pankhurst’s line was intended as a joke, it still resonates in 2020, where more than a hundred years later, civil rights protesters continue to be mocked and vilified; the Black Lives Matter movement is a resounding illustration of this.

NAPANG BOONPAUNG Ain’t I a Woman? 23k gold leaf and enamel on glass, 18.25” x 22.75” IG: @memorysignco • memorysignco.com

Napang Boonpaung, part owner of Memory Sign Co., is a Thai sign painter currently based in Oakland, CA. In May 1851, Sojourner Truth, an African American abolitionist and women’s rights activist spoke at a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio in which she delivered her famous speech later known as, “Ain’t I a Woman?” She used the phrase four times to emphasize the need to fight for equal rights for African American women. Truth continued speaking throughout the rest of her life, advocating for women’s rights, equality, and

suffrage until her death in 1883. I made my piece, Ain’t I a Woman? to dedicate to Truth and to all the women of color who are still fighting for their equal rights.

NISHA K. SETHI Demand Justice Enamel on reclaimed wood, 7” x 30” IG: @nisha.k.sethi • nishaksethi.com

Nisha K. Sethi is an artist / activist from Berkeley, California. As a woman of color who is deeply invested in uplifting her community, Nisha’s work serves as seeds for the resistance in which bright, bold lettering and images dance their way into the streets where they echo the chants and songs of the people. While the 19th Amendment theoretically gave all women who were citizens the right to vote, Black and Indigenous women, as well as other women of color, were still denied their right to vote for decades to come. As a Brown woman, it is difficult to celebrate a flawed milestone that only benefitted a select few, while marginalizing other communities, forcing them to continue the fight against racism and oppression.

“Demand Justice” is a call to action. It is a statement that demands immediate justice for all women of color who were and are still fighting against racism and patriarchy in America. While we may have eventually won the right to vote, BIPOC communities continue to be robbed of several basic human rights and continue to be brutalized at the hands of the government.

PASCALE ARPIN Justice, Dignity & Equality for All Womxn Enamel on stained and varnished wood, 34” x 34” IG: @pascale_arpin • pascalearpin.com

Pascale Arpin is an artist and freelance creative in Ottawa, Canada. With a background in the arts across many disciplines—from painting and illustration, to film and television sets, to graphic design—Arpin is now focused on custom sign painting and hand lettering. This piece celebrates the efforts of the suffragette movement while asking: “Who was missing from the suffrage conversation?” The piece references Art Nouveau imagery, a style reminiscent of the suffrage era, re-imagined to shift the focus towards the rights of BIWOC, queer, and transgender womxn. The cloaks of the three figures represent the colors

of the trans flag as a statement that the fight for womxn’s rights today must include trans and gender-diverse rights. The three figures are meant to encourage white and whitepassing women to confront their privilege and support BIWOC in the fight against racism, to mark the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement and take a stance against white supremacy and colorism, and to decry the lack of justice for missing and murdered Indigenous womxn. The interweaving lines and patterns symbolize the ongoing overthrow of oppressive gender norms and expectations. Finally, the crystal ball represents the future, which is one that calls for “Justice, Dignity & Equality for All Womxn.”

PICKLES (SARAH) GRINSTEIN If It’s on Fire, Then There will be Light for a While Enamel and gold leaf on wood IG: @pickleshyperbole • milktruck.biz

Pickles (Sarah) Grinstein is sign painter and fine artist working in San Francisco’s Mission District. Pickles trained as sign painter at New Bohemia Signs under master sign painter Damon Styer. She studied studio art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Pickles’ work is an irreverent critique of gender roles and contemporary sexual mores.

The phrase “if it’s on fire, then there will be light for a while” represents both catalyst and vision. It references the current incendiary moment in racial and gender politics with a hopeful but appropriately hardened message. The revolution will be constructive, but it will also be destructive.

RACHEL E. MILLAR In Her Own Hands Enamel on Plywood, 18” x 24” IG: @rachelemillar • rachelemillar.com

Rachel E. Millar is a signwriter and lettering artist based in Glasgow, Scotland. She works somewhere between design, art and craft, fusing traditional techniques with contemporary design. She works on a commercial basis for small businesses to large companies alongside creating her own artwork which experiments with color and perspective. The inspiration for my piece came from research into the experiences of suffragettes in Scotland during 1912, the year the Parliamentary Franchise (Women) Bill was defeated. In this year, protesters took to more violent protest and were often imprisoned for “malicious mischief.” Most went on hunger strikes, which started the nowinfamous trend of force feeding. Arabella Scott was

imprisoned in Perth for six days and force fed throughout her sentence. In a letter in reply to her mother asking for Scott’s release, the Secretary for Scotland saw no reason why the demand should be granted: “and as for forcible feeding the prisoner has the remedy in her own hands.” The Secretary for Scotland’s response echoes a response we women hear in so many aspects of life. It implies that we must change our actions in order to stop the outcome, instead of looking at the root of the problem and resolving it. Sexual abuse, for example, is overwhelmingly blamed on the victim instead of the abuser. I chose to paint ‘In Her Own Hands’ as this is exactly what every woman should have—her own life, career, and body in her own hands and no one else’s.

REMEDIOS RAPOPORT The Gentle Revolution Mobile, 2008-2020 Mixed media modular painted kinetic sculpture on wood and aluminum with gilding, repurposed fishing gear, found objects, and crystals, 7-10’ x 5-11’ IG: @remediosrapoport • remediosrapoport.com

This piece is a modular installation that shares Word Portrait messages of healthy change related to the Gentle Revolution Manifesto. Its moving/spinning panels spin and mix powerful graphic slogans alongside inspiring quotes from well-known activists, artists, and musicians—all rotating around the spinning mirrored Earth Ball. The Mobile is modified to the needs of each installation space. Key ideas to inspire thinking and dialog about positive change are presented to viewers with proactive statements about creating a healthier world for all people of the Earth. Connected by fishing gear, it supports the concept of “fishing for ideas,” while rotating spots of light, reflective surfaces and beaded crystals add a festive sensation.

With this piece, I aim to empower people beyond political and cultural borders for lifestyle changes to build healthy communities and a healthy ecosystem, with respect for all people and all life. As active communities, we can rebuild our social justice system to stop the privileged few from perpetuating war and harm upon others.

SARAH AYALA MARIANISMO Enamel, 22k gold leaf, and resin on canvas, 12” x 16” IG: @sarahrayala • sarahayala.net

Sarah Ayala lives and creates in Fort Worth, Texas as a fulltime artist. She specializes in lettering, geometric patternwork, and murals. Her aim is to make art more accessible to the public by working largely with community partners. Sarah takes inspiration from world philosophies while focusing on her Latinx culture and social commentary.

deeply ingrained gender role assigned to women in Hispanic culture: to be pure, selfless givers throughout a life of selfsacrifice for your family. For Mexican immigrants during that time, this gender role meant never stepping into a voting booth, even after the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

This piece highlights the experience of Latina women during the time of the women’s suffrage movement, which often omitted the voices of women of color and immigrants. It brings to light the lack of representation, then and now, within feminism. The gold spun “Marianismo” refers to the

SHELBY RODEFFER The Way Forward Must Be For All of Us Acrylic, enamel, and gold leaf on quilted silk with brass chain and fringe, 20” x 30” IG: @smellby • shelbyrodeffer.com

The experience of being a woman is not monolithic. Not all women are mothers; we do not look the same, we do not have the same world lens, and we do not all identify as women. The dissonant experience of being marginalized is present in the form of a quilt—an art form that has historically been relegated to domestic craft, or “women’s work.” The quote, “the way forward must be for all of us” is my urging for white feminists on the centennial of white women’s right to vote. For too long, we have denied space for trans women, BIPOC, the disabled, the genderqueer, and the undocumented. One hundred years of history has shown us that gatekeeping and exclusionary ideology has caused deep

harm within the Feminist movement. If we want to move forward into true equality, we can only do that if we fight injustice with all women and post-binary people in mind.

SHLEY KINSER Whose Vote Counts on Stolen Land Enamel on wood, 20” x 30” IG: @tiny_shley

Ashley “Shley” Kinser is a third-generation sign painter residing in Salt Lake City, Utah. She grew up running around her family’s sign shop, Schmidt Signs, which has been family owned and operated since 1947. She finds joy in teamwork, caring for dogs, and hates cockroaches. In so-called Utah, the Goshute, Ute, Paiute, Shoshone, and Dine’ people face unprecedented and unfair treatment at the hands of the U.S. government, who has never served them. Any amount of sovereignty provided by treaties or other agreements is betrayed, broken, or exploited by the dominant capitalist class. The sacred lands of these tribes are in constant jeopardy of being looted even further and sold off for drilling of oil, or fracking.

Indigenous women in so-called America currently experience exponentially higher rates of violence than that of non-indigenous peoples. The third leading cause of death for indigenous people is murder, a rate ten times the national average. Indigenous women account for forty percent of sex trafficking victims. Ninety five percent of these murder, kidnapping, or rape cases get no media coverage. This mistreatment is the symptom of white settler colonialism on stolen indigenous land. Please visit mmiwhoismissing.org for more details and paypal.me/mmiwhoismissing to donate.

STACI HELMS Fed Up 22k moon gold and 23k deep gold on glass and enamel, 10â&#x20AC;? x 14â&#x20AC;? IG: @stacixhelms

Staci Helms is a traditional sign painter, letterer, and designer. Originally from Denver, currently based in Los Angeles but often on the road, traveling and painting.

This piece is for all the people of color.

SUZY CURRELL Deeds not Words Enamel on plywood, 50 x 80 cm IG: @muddy_creek_signs • muddycreeksigns.com

I’m a signwriter of ten years standing and a political activist, and I live and work in Cornwall, UK. Alongside my commercial work, I love to breathe life and beauty into old political slogans and phrases (alongside some of my own invention), many of which still prove starkly relevant decades—and even centuries—after they were first coined.

Such a slogan is “Deeds not Words,” the famous rallying cry of the British suffragette movement, and a clarion call for direct action that still inspires today.

TONE EMBLEMSVÅG The Rebel Enamel and acrylic on canvas, 50 x 70 cm IG: @skydoll73 • toneart.rocks

Tone has a BA (Hons) in Design and Scenography at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London and has over twenty five years experience as a graphic designer, illustrator, exhibition designer, and visual artist. She is currently Head of Design in Face2face Creatives International and is also running her own business doing illustrations and visual art commissions. I enjoy working in the intersection of design and the physical format. Painting has always been an important part of my work and my love for letters brought me into exploring and getting to know the sign painter community. As a scenographer, I have worked handson, with everything from mural and video installations in urban spaces, to festivals and window displays.

This piece is a companion piece to a mural titled Rebels with a Cause being painted as part of the Pre-Vinylettes Suffragette Centennial. A hundred years after the suffragette movement, is it still considered rebellious to speak your mind? The idea for these pieces came after reading that the suffragettes were seen as rebels of their time. I wish to illustrate today’s rebels as a garland of women from different cultures, ages, and backgrounds as a nod to the suffragettes whose main cause was to achieve the right to vote because as we know, fighting for equality, freedom of speech or basic human rights still requires bravery and a rebellious spirit. With this in mind, I also created an ironic image of a rebellious feminist the way circus sideshows in the early 1900s would promote an amazing attraction.

VALENTINA CASALI VOTE 2020 Sculptural piece / Enamel on wood, 58 x 32.5 x 32.5 cm IG: @typophrenic • sundayburo.com

Valentina Casali is a multidisciplinary lettering artist from Italy. Her work ranges from hand-lettering, calligraphy, type design, sign painting, and letter carving. She’s the co-founder of the lettering studio Sunday Büro and editor of Lettering da Jesi, a project that aims to discover and preserve old signs. In her free time, she likes to work with fibers at her side project Tiger Mochi. Without voting, there is no democracy, and without democracy there’s tyranny. Women from all over the world have experienced it in many ways, and, unfortunately, still do. With this piece, I want to celebrate the courage of those women who stood against tyranny, conquering the right to vote and to express their political opinions. Those women

had different cultural backgrounds and beliefs, were different ages and ethnicities, but they were united and so they won. Anna Kuliscioff, a Russian-Italian doctor and suffragette, wrote in 1894 (translated from Italian): “In all Europe and America, entire armies made of women are gathering together. They fight for their redemption and to shake the age old-yoke that the male sex imposes. Although this women’s fight is hardly displayed, because—for thousands of physiological and psychological reasons—it could never assume the harshness and hate that distinguish the battle of different social classes, it cannot have another meaning other than to break down male privilege, and break down his power.”

VERONIKA JØRGENSEN The Transgender Fringe of Feminism Enamel and gold leaf on wood, 20” x 20” IG: @veronika_skilte • veronikaskilte.com

Veronika Jørgensen is an accomplished sign painter based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Working from a background in jewelry making and graffiti, Veronika taught herself the art of sign painting. Starting out with just a homemade mahl stick and a few brushes, she has made a living in Copenhagen painting signs for neighborhood shops, as well as for big brands. Veronika focuses on making the modern meet the traditional in her work, making signs that are up to date, but with all the benefits of traditional sign painting. From silent exclusion to overt denial and erasure, trans people face unique challenges everywhere. When I was invited to participate in this exhibition, my first thought

was, “do I belong here?” followed by “what if someone finds out?” Once I came to my senses, these are exactly the thoughts that fueled the piece. More so, it’s important that minority voices are elevated and celebrated in a feminist space. That’s why this piece addresses more recent issues of feminism. While early 1900s feminism centered around (some) women’s right to vote, I chose a modern feminist issue to work with and one that still needs a lot of work. Rather than looking back, I think it’s very important as a minority woman to express the issues that impact me most right now.

ZULMA RUIZ DIAZ Deeds Not Words Enamel on aluminum, 12” x 18” IG: @chesigns

This work is a Fileteado Porteño, originally an art from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Today, the Filete is an intangible World Heritage Site. This sign was made by a porteña: me! Born and raised in Buenos Aires, I learned to love this style while walking and living in the streets of my city, where art is always present in the small details of urban elements, whether in signs or in painted details on buses. Now I am living in Los Angeles, and while it is not the same landscape, there is wonderful vernacular typography to discover on the walls and windows of this city. That is part of the magic that this place has, despite the high population and vehicular density.

I chose this phrase because it was the motto of the English suffragettes. They went from words to action, fighting tooth and nail for their rights. The birds for me symbolize the liberation that the suffragettes achieved when they reached their goals; the red flowers represent women, blooming when they won their amendment; the bow is the flag of the American suffragettes, and all the elements: the flowers, the ornaments, the strong colors, and the almost total use of the surface are part of the identity of the Fileteado Porteño.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS NOT PICTURED E M M A R OW L A N D

IG: @rowland_studio • rowlandstudio.com.au Emma is a West Australian artist who runs Rowland Studio, a design, signwriting and illustration business based in Sydney. Working on a freelance basis for both small and large organizations alongside her art practice allows Emma to pursue a wide range of projects and mediums. She likes mashing up traditional techniques with current technologies to create interesting outcomes. As a queer woman working in a male dominated field, Emma believes there is power in numbers. She loves sharing advice, tips, and building community within the signwriting world and beyond. Emma is interested in the juxtaposition of old and new, such as hand drawn letters in modern applications. She currently has a studio space in Erskineville, New South Wales.

H O L LY F R A N C I S

hollyfrancis.com Holly is an artist based in Richmond, Virginia. She works in many mediums but her playful graphic style most often takes the form of signs, murals, and paintings.

ALINA RADETSKY

IG: @allgoodsigns • allgoodsigns.co

ANNABELLE BLUE MCCALL ASHLEY MORAN

IG: @chumpontherun • chumpontherun.com

CAMILLE WEBER

K I M B E R L E Y E DWA R D S

IG: @window_goddess • windowgoddess.com Kimberley is an artist and sign painter, originally from St. Louis, Missouri, living and working in Los Angeles, California since 1987. She has been doing business as The Window Goddess, Signs and Window Splash, since 2005. Kimberley is a graduate of the Los Angeles Trade Technical College Sign Graphics program and serves on the program’s advisory board.

M O R GA N E C Ô M E

IG: @morganesigns • morganec.fr Morgane is sign painter and graphic designer based in Brittany, France. She discovered sign painting on a trip to NYC with ESPO and Colossal Media. A 2014 workshop in London with Mike Meyer, Brilliant Signs, and Spectrum Signs, organized by Better Letters, brought her to a new world she became passionate about. Since moving to Brittany in 2016, she focuses on offering bespoke hand painted lettering to independent shops. Brittany holds a strong popular culture which lives through costumes, music, language, typography, and a preserved nature and architecture: a region where sign painting takes on its full meaning.

K E N D R A S PA N J E R

IG: @kendystix • goodgirlsignco.com

LIANE BARKER

IG: @brushandpenstudio • brushandpenstudio.com

MARION WRIGHT

newbiginsigns.co.uk

MONIQUE AIMEE

C RYS TA L R O S E W H I T E

IG: @moniqueaimee • moniqueaimee.com

GOOD SNAKE

IG: @lucky_signs • itsaluckysign.com

JA E W E B B & A S H L E E S T E WAC K

IG: @brushettasigns

KELSI SHARP

IG: @circus_signco

IG: @crystalrosesigns

IG: @goodsnake • goodsnake.com

IG: @ashleestewack

IG: @sharpdesign.co • kelsisharp.com

SARAH APPLE

VA L E N T I N A T R E N T I N I YA E L WA L L AC E ZO Ë P O W E R

IG: @zoepowpower • zoepower.com

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The Pre-Vinylite Society Manifesto

THE PRE-VINYLITE SOCIETY MANIFESTO

The Pre-Vinylite Society is a loose network of self-ordained sign enthusiasts and advocates for a renewed interest in craftsmanship and the aesthetics of our built environment. The aim of the Pre-Vinylite Society is to encourage sign painters, sign enthusiasts, artists, writers, documentarians, business owners, and the general public to be more aware of their aesthetic surroundings and take pride in their neighborhoods by The Pre-Vinylite Society is a loose network of self-ordained sign enthusiasts advocates forand a renewed interest in craftsmanship creating, commissioning, documenting, and appreciating qualityand signage, art, architecture.

and the aesthetics of our built environment. The aim of the Pre-Vinylite Society is to encourage sign painters, sign enthusiasts, artists, writers, documentarians, business owners, and the general public to be more aware of their aesthetic surroundings and take The name “Pre-Vinylite” is derived from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of 19th-century English pride in their neighborhoods by creating, commissioning, documenting, and appreciating quality signage, art, and architecture.

artists and writers who rebelled against the academic conventions of their day. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood defied the tradition passed down from Raphael that taught a strict approach to producing The name “Pre-Vinylite” is derived from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of 19th-century English artists and writers who rebelled They againstfelt thethat academic conventions of their Pre-Raphaelite defied the tradition passed paintings. merely conforming today. theThe conventions of Brotherhood previous masters made for art that was down from thatbecause taught a strict approach to producing paintings. felt that merely conforming to the conventions devoid ofRaphael emotion it lacked a sense of humanity andThey creativity. of previous masters made for art that was devoid of emotion because it lacked a sense of humanity and creativity.

The Pre-Raphaelites detailed their ambitions in four simple declarations: 1. to have genuine ideas to express; to genuine study Nature attentively, so as to know how to express them; 1. to 2. have ideas to express; 3. to sympathize with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art to 2. to study attentively, so asistoconventional know how to express them; theNature exclusion of what and self-parading and learned by rote; 4. and, most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues. The Pre-Raphaelites detailed their ambitions in four simple declarations:

3. to sympathize with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading and learned by rote;

The Pre-Vinylite name also connotes the period before vinyl technology nearly decimated the hand-painted in the 1980s servesthoroughly as a commemoration of this pre-vinyl era, but not a wish to return to 4.sign and,industry most indispensable of all,and to produce good pictures and statues. it. Despite the emphasis on a bygone era that “pre” suggests, the Pre-Vinylites are not a society of Luddites, The Pre-Vinylite name alsoorconnotes the period vinyl hand-painted shunning technology advocating for abefore return to technology a simpler nearly time. decimated Pre-vinylthe does not equal anti-vinyl. The sign industry in the 1980s and serves as a commemoration of this pre-vinyl era, but not a wish to return to Pre-Vinylite Society is a forward-thinking organization, dedicated to a future informed by the past. it. Despite the emphasis on a bygone era that “pre” suggests, the Pre-Vinylites are not a society of Luddites, shunning technology or advocating for a return to a simpler time. Pre-vinyl does not equal anti-vinyl.

The Pre-Vinylite Society aims to inspire a sharper cognizance of the built environment and a desire to create and appreciate new, forward-focused art thatorganization, respects the traditions techniques of the thepast. past. Much The Pre-Vinylite Society is a forward-thinking dedicated to aand future informed by The Pre- like the PreVinylite Society aims to inspire a sharper thename, built environment and a desire to create andup appreciate new, who are Raphaelite Brotherhood from whomcognizance we deriveofour the Pre-Vinylite Society is made of members forward-focused artaesthetic that respects the traditions and techniques thetraditions past. Muchthat like dictate the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood observant of the world around us and resistantofto easy, quick, and careless ways of from whom we derive our name, the Pre-Vinylite Society is made up of members who are observant of the aesthetic making our art. Also like the Pre-Raphaelites, we Pre-Vinylites are writers and artists, striving to make our mission world around us and resistant to traditions that dictate easy, quick, and careless ways of making our art. Also like the heard as well as seen. Pre-Raphaelites, we Pre-Vinylites are writers and artists, striving to make our mission heard as well as seen. Ultimately, Pre-Vinylites believe that artistic vigilance in the face of mass conformity can deliver us from a Ultimately, thethe Pre-Vinylites believe that artistic vigilance in the face of mass conformity can deliver us from a homogenous existence. homogenous existence. WE ARE AWARE | PRE-VINYLITES UNITE

W E A R E AWA R E | P R E-V I N Y L I T E S U N I T E