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Art and Commerce Collide
The intricate world of a sign painting artist
By Susan Pointing
It’s no surprise artists are feeling the pinch during these troubling economic times, but over the years, artists have faced many challenges, not the least of which is technology.
Art and technology often meet for many working in the sign industry.
Rapidly expanding new technologies can either hinder or greatly assist an artist in their work, but for purists, computer generated technology can never take the place of an artisan’s hand.
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It takes years of practice and hard won stamina to become good at any one thing and for Pierre Tardiff, a childhood passion, watching stock car races as a young boy, admiring the lettering on the sides of the cars, has grown into a labour of love and a full time career.
But technology has reared its ugly head in his business more than once.
He’s called, “Lettrage Pierre Tardiff and he can tell the era of a sign’s historical significance within about five years. His father once told the Quebec City entrepreneur that he would have to work for himself, because no one else would hire him. Good advice for the now successful sign artist who has run his own company since he was 18 years old.
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As with any business, there have been many difficulties.
In 1988, just before the computer craze, “Being a sign painter was not a big investment and there were only about 35 or 40 painters in Quebec,” Tardiff says. But post-1988, those numbers spiked to over 300 paint shops in just five years. Computer generated images on vinyl and leather made the once unique business highly competitive, and as Tardiff recalls, “No one cared so much about quality as about the price.”
So in 1993, Tardiff caved in and bought a computer. But after only a year of the computer-generated work, he decided it just was not for him. Call him a purist, Tardiff packed up shop and went out on the road, with his one and only employee at the time, and began to do window splash advertisements.
Together they painted for car dealers, furniture stores, fast food restaurants, and after a couple of years, business was so good they could hardly keep up with work.
They were one of the first to utilize Tyvek, (material used on the outside of homes before the wood or vinyl siding is put up), for ads for a variety of big chains like Harvey’s and Little Ceaser’s. “Tyvek is mainly used for home construction, but it can be bought blank for the graphic industry, it’s tough and can withstand a lot,” says Tardiff.
Soon, Tardiff had 10 employees churning out window splashes, but then technologic advances and artistic endeavors collided once again, and digital printers came along, “That combined with globalization, killed the window advertising for us,” says Tardiff.
Tardiff’s company, P. Tardif Inc., went through a major contraction again – from 10 employees doing window ad splashes and a healthy $500,000 a year, to under $100,000.
The car dealers, and fast food restaurants all began to receive digital graphics from their various head offices and were no longer allowed to have their own advertising, “As a way to keep messaging uniform, all the decisions were made out of their head offices, and so we lost major customers,” says Tardiff.
That was when Tardiff returned to his roots and went back to lettering.
Now the bulk of his work is in vintage sign reproduction. A few years back he did the signs on set for the Johnny Depp film, Secret Window.
Currently Parks Canada has ordered some signs for historic sites across Canada, and Tardiff is always busy painting about 10 to 12 vintage trucks ever year.
One of the more significant historical pieces, and which Tardiff is proud of is the restoration and recreation of the gold leaf ornament on a steam fire engine in the town of St. Jean Richelieu, circa, 1876.
As an artist, Tardiff says his work, like all signs throughout history, tell a story, and brings back to life pieces of the past.
It’s a good thing too, as technology and art will always collide, but Lettrage, Pierre Tardiff is proof there is a way, once you work through all the kinks, for the two to coincide peacefully.
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