 City Signs illustrated by David Matthews | CITY SIGNS While raising my son and daughter I worked as a freelance graphic artist. One week I’d be creating invitations for a non-profit fundraiser or a destination wedding, the next I’d produce the art for a film strip, a multi-page brochure, a book cover or a roadside bill board. Some of my favorite commissions were creating company logos used for stationary, business cards, advertising and city signs. To return to Little Rock, Dallas or Manhattan and find city signs with my logos still displayed over doorways and on storefront windows is always gratifying. |
Signs in any city are unique art forms that identify businesses we seek. Our own Kansas City is a satisfying cacophony of artful city signs.
Recently, after working gallery hours through the weekend at artCentral, David and I make a Monday day trip to Kansas City. When in KC, visiting the Nelson Atkins and Kemper museums always assures artful pleasures. Since these art-filled venues, like artCentral, take Mondays off, we opt to spend our day seeing what we can see while eating our way through the town.
What we find brings us abundant delights beginning with our cityscape skyline view from a spacious city park’s gently rolling terrain where we stretch and walk Chiquita our Wheaton Terrier/poodle. A view like this from NYC’s Central Park was always a treat each Sunday when my kids and I took the subway from Chelsea and hung out with their friends in the Sheep Meadow. Over weeks and months and years we learned our metropolis well, up close and from such distant views.
David knows Kansas City well from his student days at the KC Art Institute and his later KC years as artist/owner of his Upstart Crow Gallery. Skillfully threading us through main thoroughfares and back streets, for brunch he curb-parks before Chez Elle for a splendidly shared salmon crêpe companioned with steaming cappuccinos. Next stops include purchases from the bargain bin at the Cellar Rat followed by selections of boutique international chocolates chosen from the sparkling glass cases at Christopher Elbow’s where our choices are delicately placed in a gift box imprinted with the highly stylized E and C logo, the same as the shingle above the shop’s entrance. We treat ourselves to happy hour jazz at the Green Lady and discover Matt Hopper, David’s KC musician friend just returned from an extended booking in Brazil and playing KC before his next gig in Paris.
Anticipating our late night drive home, we make one last stop at Glacé for a waffle cone of mocha ice cream topped with salted caramel sauce. Divine and just the boost to leave the city signs and follow the highway signs back home to Carthage.
Recently, after working gallery hours through the weekend at artCentral, David and I make a Monday day trip to Kansas City. When in KC, visiting the Nelson Atkins and Kemper museums always assures artful pleasures. Since these art-filled venues, like artCentral, take Mondays off, we opt to spend our day seeing what we can see while eating our way through the town.
What we find brings us abundant delights beginning with our cityscape skyline view from a spacious city park’s gently rolling terrain where we stretch and walk Chiquita our Wheaton Terrier/poodle. A view like this from NYC’s Central Park was always a treat each Sunday when my kids and I took the subway from Chelsea and hung out with their friends in the Sheep Meadow. Over weeks and months and years we learned our metropolis well, up close and from such distant views.
David knows Kansas City well from his student days at the KC Art Institute and his later KC years as artist/owner of his Upstart Crow Gallery. Skillfully threading us through main thoroughfares and back streets, for brunch he curb-parks before Chez Elle for a splendidly shared salmon crêpe companioned with steaming cappuccinos. Next stops include purchases from the bargain bin at the Cellar Rat followed by selections of boutique international chocolates chosen from the sparkling glass cases at Christopher Elbow’s where our choices are delicately placed in a gift box imprinted with the highly stylized E and C logo, the same as the shingle above the shop’s entrance. We treat ourselves to happy hour jazz at the Green Lady and discover Matt Hopper, David’s KC musician friend just returned from an extended booking in Brazil and playing KC before his next gig in Paris.
Anticipating our late night drive home, we make one last stop at Glacé for a waffle cone of mocha ice cream topped with salted caramel sauce. Divine and just the boost to leave the city signs and follow the highway signs back home to Carthage.
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