____________________________________________________________________________________

This sign from a small town in the Okanogan demonstrates a unique blend of pen-made Gothic with the sensibility of Blondie and Dagwood. Note how the sign maker became reflective and doubtful at the end, forming a k with a completely different serif, lifted no doubt from a manuscript in the Newberry Library. Consistency is one of the greatest challenges of the letter arts: how exactly DO you get to the end of a sentence in the same style you began? Here the work is unified by soothing wood grain which flows from the hard-edged and somewhat brutal content of the words into the mind of Blondie as she dreams of being wak-ed into beauty.

This comes to me from Jake Seniuk, Director of the Port Angeles Fine Art Center. His hair was salt and pepper at the moment of documentation, and in spite of urging from his young sons, he chose to get his hair cut farther down the road.