October 6 - 8 Wilsigns, Napier, in the Art Deco Capital of New Zealand

What a rockin’ good time was had at Muzza’s place!

The long weekend started by picking up the “Goldfather” from the airport early on Thursday afternoon and then heading straight for Napier accompanied by Norm Biss. A quick rest stop in Taupo and we made it into Napier by 7.30pm and it was straight round to Murray’s to see if we could help/get in the way/keep him up late/whatever.

Friday dawned overcast and cold but what the hell - we were at Letterheads! By 10.00am just about everybody was there with the notable exception of the Nelson contingent who arrived just after lunch. As always it was pleasing to see a lot of apprentices present and quite a few Letterheads virgins - mostly from Wellington in the form of the Signwise staff.

Our guests for Letterheads apart from Aussie John “Goldfather” Jordan were Canadian couple, Steve and Barb Shortreed who own and operate the Letterville site in North America (www.letterville.com). Steve is an accomplished signwriter and known for his lettering and after the Napier bash had earned a reputation as a body painter too!

Those attending had produced a wide variety of the Letterheads logos showing their own particular brand of inventiveness. The ones that stood out for me were the gilded dimensional letters, the cowboy and the toast but they were all works of art in their own right.

Murray Wilson had arranged a host of activities from lining and striping, through to airbrush, lettering, gilding, sign boards, a project wall, watercolour demonstration and of course the ever popular bumpy pink canvases for the body painting.

Saturday night saw a double decker bus take everyone to The Old Mill for a dinner and dance. Steve Shortreed was surprised to find that the proprietor lived 12 miles away from him in Fergus, Ontario some years ago.

Live music, added to by Murray Wilson (bass), Steve Shortreed (rhythm), Dean ‘Elvis’ Johnstone (vocals), and Paul Mendes da Costa (backing group?) having a bit of a jam session when the band took a break.

Sunday saw the usual rush to finish projects off before lunch and a quick play with the pinstripers race track then it was time to say our goodbyes until next year when we’ll be Cruisin’ with Chris, 9 - 11 November at Field Sign Company in Auckland.

As usual it’s probably best to let the pictures tell the story. There was some awesome work undertaken by those present and Murray had arranged some prizes for those showing the way. One new innovation was the Spirit of Letterheads award which was to be given to Greg Miller of New Plymouth. Greg has attended a few Letterheads meets but even when he can’t get there, he always sends in a project of his interpretation of the event logo.

Some 800 photos were taken over the weekend all Letterheads will receive a disk with everyone’s pics on them. A fitting reminder of a really good time in the Hawkes Bay.

Steve and Barb Shortreed were dutifully impressed by what they saw of NZ’s craftspeople and hope to come back again next year. There’s already a fair few comments and some good photos of Steve and Barb’s travels in both NZ and Australia up on the Letterville site if you want to check them out.

By the way Bob had a really neat time at Letterheads and didn’t get into any trouble at all.

Great to see so many people trying new things and learning from others.

Thanks must go to Murray and Jocelyn Wilson and their kids, Ben and Libby, for putting on a great event. Damian Gormly of Wilsigns also had a hand in its success. Let’s also not forget the sponsors who were; Zimstone, Signwriters Supplies, Total Supply, Mulford Plastics, Roland DG, Colour Works, Computaleta Sservices, LCS, Process Signs, Resene , Resene Santano and Axis Routered Innovations - Thanks guys!