Mike Stevens Video and ARTSIGN question.

[Charles Borges de Oliveir]

This is a rather odd question but oh well here goes. I was looking at one of my older signcraft magazines and saw an add for the Mike Stevens video. They show him lettering the word "Script" rather large on a red cardstock. Unfortuantly this is not in the video. Does anybody know if that segment ever got made but just edited out of the video? I know, weird question. Second question. Does anybody know if Mike Stevens ever started making his Showcard video? If he did It would be neat to see what got made. Last question. Does anybody have any ARTSIGN red sable showcard brushes that they would like to part with?? I am using NOCTURNA and 9355 Grumbacher showcard brushes but would love to get my hands on any Artsign brushes. Just a thought.

Thanks and Have a fun day,

-Charles Borges de Oliveira

[Mike Jackson]

Charles,
Mike Stevens rarely (if ever) let anyone actually watch him letter a card, that I know of anyway. I have one of his cards here and it is apparent he was a master of the brush with each stroke tight and precise.

Someone had one of the videos at the Memphis meeting a long time ago and I stepped into the room to watch a bit of it. I'd say it had a pace of something like watching crops grow, or paint dry. There are probably a few of them still around in a big pile of other old VHS tapes, but I haven't seen one in a long time and I didn't buy one. This site is a good place to start asking....maybe Raymond Chapman bought one?

I can't help you on the brushes!

Good luck,
Mike Jackson

[Raymond Chapman]

Yep...Mike is right....I bought one. At the time they were really expensive (at least in my mind) - sold for over $200. As far as I know, that was the only video he made. I also have an audio tape of him explaining layout but no pictures came with it. At the time of his death he was working with John Cox on a signwriting school and various teaching products, so he might have some insight into other works that might have been in progress.

Probably he did a lot of things to promote the video that either were never intended to be part of the video or were just left out because of repetition.

There were a lot of us that copied his style. Even today, most of what I teach in my layout workshops came from either his book or his head.

At Mike Jackson's Bash way back there in '82 I tried to get Mike (Stevens) to do a show card demonstration and he refused. I think he was suffering from a hangover from the night before.

Also like Mike Jackson, I have one of his show cards framed and hanging in my studio. Over the years I have studied it very carefully and am still amazed at the quality of his work. It was done sometime in the late 60's and was one that he used in his workshops.

Can't help you on the brush situation. I looked through all my brushes and not an Artsign in the bunch. Some are almost 50 years old and the handles have lost their paint, but I know that they are Grumbacher.

[Doug Fielder]

I have a copy of the video... Harry, my mentor, was a huge fan and after Mike died, Harry somehow found out that his sister had a few copies left and bought one. I now have it and want to get it burned onto DVD.
It was as exciting as Mike said it was... but he was a brush master as was Al Zannetti.

[Billy Pickett]

...Wasn't MIKE living in Pa. with (his girlfriend?) LYNN HOLLINGER when he made the video? Where-ever she is today, perhaps she knows how the video was made and edited. I think she held the camera. Does anybody know what happened to her?

[Mike Jackson]

Hi all,
Lynn Hollinger was working for me in Moore, OK back in the fall of 1982 when we hosted the Oklahoma Bash. Lynn and Mike hit it off, and a week or so later, she quit and headed to California. I believe they got married out there and later divorced. She headed back to Pennsylvania and didn't do much more in the sign business (that I know of anyway). Mike Stevens moved to the Kentucky area and worked with John Cox.

Mike Stevens began his newsletters not long after the Oklahoma Bash, followed by the hardcover book. I believe Lynn was in the picture mostly during the newsletters/book period, but I am not sure of the timing on the video. I seem to recall it being available about the time of the Memphis Letterhead meeting, but I don't remember the year...probably 1984 following the Kansas City meeting in what I am guessing was 1983. I believe Mike Stevens had a daughter from a previous marriage and I believe she is the one with the rights to his name, fonts, and so forth. Anyone interested in taking this futher might contact Dave Simpson and SignDNA as I believe he has some contact with his daughter.

That's about the best I can offer. Personally, I'd bet his daughter would say okay to letting someone burn a DVD off an old VHS tape, just to let later generations of signmakers see her father's work.

Good luck,
Mike Jackson

[Mike Jackson]

I justed checked the Letterhead Timeline http://www.theletterheads.com/lhparts/timeline.html

Oklahoma Bash (Moore, OK) October 1982
Sign Jazz (Kansas City) June 1983
Signs Southern Style (Memphis) May 1984

Mike

[Doug Fielder]

Mike, the video says Copyright 1985.

You may have been at the Pre-Screening!


I am going to try tracking her down and see if we can get some copies out there...

Doug.

[Mike Jackson]

There was a "convention" room at the main hotel for the Memphis meeting. I remember seeing Gerber's GDS system at that meeting, which was a digitizing tablet connected to an Apple IIe (64k ram memory). There was a room off to one side and I seem to recall a TV in there with a VHS tape player. I want to believe it was the Stevens lettering tape, but it has been a long time to recall that kind of information clearly. What I do remember was it was expensive and very slow, but then I didn't watch the entire thing.

The meeting itself was at the sign shop away from the hotel.

Mike Jackson

[Doug Fielder]

Yes, that was it! I remember when I was watching it, I kept falling asleep! Maybe I should watch it again and stay awake!

The way technology has changed in 20 years is amazing!

To think I was 11 years old when this tape came out! If I knew then what I wanted to do, I would being doing pretty well by now!