Mike Wood, of Jamestown, is a second-generation sign painter and hand letterer. Mike’s father, Buddy Wood, has been painting signs in Fentress County since the 1960s. The elder Wood started in the trade professionally at a time when most local businesses, shops, stores, schools, and churches relied on painters for their signage, advertising, and window displays. In the 1970s, Buddy began painting the “big boards” for tourist attractions in Pigeon Forge. Mike observed his father as a child and was soon painting right alongside him. Together, the Woods have remained committed to the subtleties of traditional design, lettering, illustration, and pattern transferring. Mike notes that since the 1990s, this art form has been rapidly replaced by computerized design and sign fabrication. What was once ubiquitous on the sides of buildings and in shop windows is now scarcely seen in a downtown landscape. “I want to use my skills in sign painting in order to preserve and continue their use in the Upper Cumberland,” Mike explains. “There are many nuanced skills that aren’t taught in books. It is important as an advertising method, a cultural institution, as well as for painting items by hand such as keepsakes and mementos.”
As part of the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship program this year, Mike his teaching his son and apprentice Avery Wood the sign painting tradition of their family. “My dad and grandfather have done this for my entire life,” Avery says. “I’d like to carry that knowledge forward. Hand lettering is fast becoming a lost art. If we don’t continue it will be lost to time.” Together Mike and Avery will focus on traditional hand painting and pattern transfer techniques, construction, and sign maintenance. They plan to apply their apprenticeship efforts toward local projects including creating signage for county offices, murals, and other signage in the historic Jamestown downtown area.
*This team is funded through a special partnership with the South Arts’ initiative In These Mountains: Central Appalachian Folk Art & Culture.
