Suzy Currell, Muddy Creek Signs, Constantine, Cornwall, UK
Suzy Currell - UK I painted the name on the boat I was living in and really enjoyed it, so decided to be a sign writer. I had no idea how much I didn’t know!
do apprenticeships or come up through trade schools, but this working-out-how-todo-it-from-scratch is also a strength.
My favorite thing about sign painting is being able to spend most of my working time on my own. My least favorite thing is having to spend most of my working time on my own.
We have so much to learn from the traditional way things were done, and I wish I’d had more of a grounding in the traditional skills, but making stuff up as you go along is a great driver of creativity.
There’s a bit of grumpiness from some of the “old guard” about up-and-coming sign writers not knowing the “right” way to sign write, in the sense that they didn’t
I think more of us nowadays are ex aspiring artists and/or graphic designers, bringing in a great rush of new enthusiasm for lettering
styles or colour. Also, the internet means we’re sharing new styles and influences and work from all the corners of the globe so much more easily, and customers are also full of enthusiasm for exciting new ideas. My advice for aspiring women sign painters is to start a good decade or two before you have kids... like I didn’t. My other talents or interests outside of sign painting? Revolutionary politics and fomenting sedition. I also grow prize winning courgettes, I mean zucchini.