NW TUT

Here's where I started. The young woman who sees to our bargain books, or rather the young woman who did before she took a promotion out of the books department, bless 'er, asked me for a sign. Not the first time either. Some years back now, during a busy season, I was asked to make more than one sign for the sales floor. I enjoy that sort of thing, always have. I made quite a few signs, that last go. People seemed to like them. Then I went back to doing what I more normally do and the people who more normally make our signs for the bookstore where I work went back to do just that, among many other things. As I say, I was glad of the opportunity to do a bit of signage and display work again. It had been years, I should think. Now here I was, about a month ago or so, doing a bit of sign-making again, if just for a couple of very temporary bargain book tables. Fine by me. Fun.

My "skill-set" is however very much out of date. I've not kept up. I still draw with a pencil. I still cut paper with scissors and poster-board with a razor. I still use glue. I don't know how to use graphic-programs on the computer, (is that redundant by now?) I don't have anything against using such things, I've just never had the opportunity or seen the necessity, considering what I actually do most days to earn my living, which is buy and sell books, rather than promote them, etc. I have the greatest respect for the people who do produce those more professional promotional materials: signs, sale banners, window dressing and the like. I am, I confess, even a bit envious of not only their "skill-set" but their training and the polish of nearly everything they produce. Which isn't to say, however, that I don't like the look of a handmade sign in a bookstore, because I do, I still very much do.

There is something to be said, particularly in an independent bookstore setting, for a touch, here and there, of the improvised, the hand-lettered, a bit of construction paper, a whiff of glue-stick, the less-than-perfect, the made-for-the-moment. Besides the aesthetics of the thing, there is just the obvious opposite of everything manufactured, pat and corporately uniform; all the values that made all those much lamented Borders bookstores so pretty and so indistinguishable, one from another. (It never quite seemed like anyone had ever made anything in a Borders, not a decision about where to put the remainders, or even the coffee. ) That may be a good thing in a national chain. The customer certainly always knew pretty much what to expect, walking into Borders Books and Music, in New Mexico or New Hampshire. But does the loyal customer of an Independent bookstore want or expect that absence of surprise?

Anyway, not my job to worry about such things. Better heads than mine. But, now and then, I may get asked to whip something up, of the moment. Glad of the challenge, and the chance.

This time what was needed was something for the display of Egyptology remainders the buyers had specially ordered and or collected in anticipation of the farewell tour of King Tut coming to town. (Seems that boy king has said more goodbyes down the decades than Cher, doesn't it?) Pretty big deal, that show, and not here long. Lovely big books on the subject at lovely low prices. How about a quick sign? Done.

I wasn't much interested in ol' Tut himself as a subject. in the first place, his gilded mug was all over the bookcovers, in living, vivid color. Nothing I could draw could compete with all that lush photography and dense black backgrounds. That would seem to be a rule with Tut books: rich, shiny gold and a background black as India ink. I thought I might try something like, but unlike. What came to mind was the poster of a movie I'd seen, "The Devil's Double," about another Pharaoh's brat, the murderous Uday Hussein. The movie poster was a spectacular thing, all in gold, the actor, Dominic Cooper, gilded on a gilded throne with golden guns. You get the idea. I looked up the poster online. Tut could work in that pose, I thought, so I sketched it out briefly, as seen above. Why not?

So off to the basement for some supplies: black foamboard for the background, gold poster-board, a new can of spray-glue, as my old one had dried up, and then making the sketch the right size on the back of the gold cardboard.

Next comes my favorite part frankly, using the Exacto. I admit it, I love the things. I find the process of curving that razor-edge 'round corners and cutting out a silhouette just as exciting as the first time someone let me play with sharp things. I don't know, but somehow it still feels a little... dangerous. Whatever. The result, particularly on a larger scale as here, in poster, can be dramatic. And in gold, yet!

For a bit of detail, I found a gift paper we sell at the bookstore, a black and gold stripe, that worked rather well for my Tut's headgear. What I hoped would be the thing to make this little arts and crafts effort a bit wittier than it may so far sound, was to make my Tut specific not just to the 21st Century, but to his latest stop in the tour, Seattle. I gave him a Starbucks cup to replace one of Uday's guns, and an Ipod to replace the other.

NW TUT.

Get it? Okay, so it's not Madison Ave. I thought it was just clever enough to make someone else smile too. (It did.)

Here's our boy finished. Not bad. I need to confess one thing more though, and explain his "bling" TUT. When I drew and cut out his Ipod, I thought I might be awfully clever and make the cord from the device to his earbuds by using one of those white-out tape dispensers, you know, the ones shaped to fit the hand, where the white comes out on a spool. That, my friends was a bad idea, as can be seen here. Not only was the line too thick, but my dispenser was running almost on empty, a fact I had not noticed before I'd started. In for a penny, in for a pound. Somewhere near the point where my ugly, thick white lines had to converge, the spool twisted to it's end and made.. . well, an ugly mess. What to do? I tried scraping the gnarled bits off, but that scratched the gold off as well. Crisis! All that effort, and then spoil it at the end. Well, I improvised. Gave our boy a bit of the ol' heavy gold, just to cover the mess, but without mucking up the theme of the thing. Worked okay, I think, just.

I ended up wishing the "bling" TUT was actually a little more visible, but still, happy enough accident. And a poster for the bargain books in an afternoon, between buying used books, answering phones and the rest.

I'm not making any claims for this as either art or graphic. It was fun to do and I think added a bit of something to an otherwise rather predictable display of very nice, topical, shiny bargain books. All it was meant to do, really.

I know there will be people who don't see much in this kind of thing, who think it rather lowers the tone. I don't disagree. I just think fun is a value, as is improvisation, surprise and, yes, ephemerality. I say embrace the temporary, now and again, and the homemade.

Though only, of course, when asked.