Artie

My Sturgis hangover is finally over. I’ve caught up on my sleep, begun to eat real food again, and re-trained myself to postpone the first beer until 5:00 PM.

Our newest pinstriping book is nearly finished, all we need is a little help from our friends (and Artie’s friends).

What’s left in this void is work, pure and simple. Job number one is to finish the Pro Pinstripe book, a series of start-to-finish pinstriping sequences done with a lot of help from East Coast Artie and a group of his talented friends. At this point we have all the photos picked and laid out, but we’re waiting for Artie and his talented friends to get it in gear and write some captions to fill those little boxes below each photo. Anything they write is so much better than my own lame descriptions of what’s going on or why they guy used red instead of blue…. But of course there’s the wait.

Here we have Nubs of OCC fame, striping an electric guitar – just one of the sequences found in our new Pro Pinstripe book.

And between and betwixt all this Pinstriping work is the topic that’s really at the top of my list – The Sturgis Book. So far I’ve inventoried my photos, sent copies to various people like the crew from the Broken Spoke, and tried to cajole the staff from the Spoke and the Chip into putting our book on their web sites.

Ernie (he who had to stay after school one night in Sturgis) and I go back and forth with ideas for the book, and Scooter (master photographer) is on The Salt, so I can’t get all his photos yet.

The idea is to send the Pro Pinstriping book, and the Sturgis 70th Anniversary book, to the printer at the same time. All in the name of saving a buck or maybe three. The deadline looms. Christmas is indeed just around the corner. Damn, I’d better get to work.

The Sturgis 70th and Pro Pinstripe books are joined at the hip like Siamese twins, both gotta go to the printer at the same time.

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is more than the site of another Bike Week. Myrtle Beach is home to East Coast Artie, famous pinstriper known far and wide for colorful pinstripes, and neat gold-leaf work, applied to everything from the local fire department’s trucks, to the bikes that people bring to the Myrtle Beach Bike Week.

I came in on Friday, the tail end of their Week. In spite of the best efforts of Myrtle Beach itself, a whole lot of motorcycles showed up. Perhaps not as many as in years past, but the event is definitely alive and well.

Crazy pinstripers are likely to add stripes and scallops to nearly anything, including this Epiphone guitar.

Instead of riding the Harley to the Broken Spoke or Suck Bang Blow, however, I took the rental-sled to the Artie’s shop, where Artie and two of his guest artists did stripes and scallops on Panels and an old Ranchero, all for the benefit of a certain Wolfgang book, due out this coming fall.

By Sunday our two guest artists, Mr. J, (xcaliberart.com) and Mikey, (Michael Frederick, Unique Signs, Mamaroneck, NY) were headed back to New York State; only to be replaced by Nubs, (Nub Grafix.com). Nubs did a phenomenal job of pinstriping a very cool Epiphone guitar, while Artie did a panel that will be auctioned off for an upcoming charity event.

Mikey is like a good athlete, he makes a project like this panel look easy – don’t believe it.

By the end of this week I hope to have at least 12 start-to-finish sequences, all of which will be assembled into our next pinstriping book: Pro Pinstripes.

After a tough day or pinstriping and taking photos of pinstripers, the team retired to the local watering hole. Left to right: Nubs, Mikey, Yours Truly, and Mr. J.

Artie’s office, with Artie on the left and Nubs on the right. In addition to an incredible collection of panels, Artie has about a million Hot Wheels cars of every shape, size and color.