The “Friendship Sign”

I call our new sign the “friendship sign.” Here’s why.

In 2015, I sketched out a basic design idea for a roadside sign for Sunnyshore Studio. I asked my dear friend from Stanwood High School, Jacob Swearingen, to see if he would work his magic to create it. He said Yes.

This is my original idea.

Jacob’s concept has become the Sunnyshore Studio brand.

I tell the story of that first sign here.

I finished that post with these words. “I drove home with the sign, but with so much more than a sign. For the sign is a symbol of friendship over the years, of love and loyalty and past memories and the hopes of many new memories and many decades more of friendship.”

Jacob’s sign was to large for us to put along the road. It fits perfectly at the entrance of the studio.

So I still needed an outdoor sign that would go along the road. I looked into a few options. A plastic sign just wasn’t cutting it for the kind of substantial sign I wanted, and it wasn’t personal enough. I couldn’t afford a metal sign at the time. Then one day, my friend Wade Starkenberg posted on facebook a metal sign he had made. It was beautiful. I immediately reached out to him to see if he would make one for Sunnyshore Studio.

Wade and I grew up in the same circles. We went to school in Stanwood and church at Camano Chapel. I spent July 2014 at my parent’s home on Camano Island putting the concepts of Identity Mapping into book form and also spent time with old friends, including Wade who I had reconnected with on facebook. I spent the afternoon at his home on Big Lake, met his wife, Jennifer and two sons. His mom, Yvonne, joined us for a delicious Salmon dinner. Decades had passed since we had last seen each other. But it seemed like just a few days. It was great to catch up.

Wade had been supportive of our Sunnyshore Studio project and graciously agreed to be a sponsor of Jed’s 2017 show “There and Back Again. https://sunnyshorestudio.com/tag/there-and-back-again/. So I was hopeful that he might make the sign. He said, “Yes.” When I asked him what it would cost me, he said “Nothing!”

Wade cut a few signs to get it just right. He had to program the design and lettering into a computer that operates the machine that cuts the metal. I liked the look of the steel sign and so Wade cut me an extra. I can take it with me on trips. I love that the Sunnyshore Studio brand is now portable. Different backdrops give it a different feel. Here are some examples.

Jackie and I spent a morning this summer filming the sunrise coming up behind the sign. My son Jacob used that footage to create an animated brand. Currently sonic branding is being made for the animation to Todd Masten, a neighbor I met I met at my coffee shop in Redmond, River Trail.

So you can understand why I was excited on Wednesday of this week to pick up the finished outdoor sign from Wade.

I spent a couple hours on Wednesday creating a base for the sign from driftwood I had collected from Randy and Melanie Serroel’s home at Port Susan Terrace, just north of Sunnyshore.

I needed a curved piece of driftwood to hang the sign on. So I called Melanie and she said “come on down.” Melanie and I walked the beach and spotted a perfect piece of driftwood.

Dad helped me start assembling the sign. I had a Camano Art Association meeting though and had to leave. He said that he would finish the sign up. He spent yesterday assembling the sign. Mom took photographs.

The new outdoor sign is up, just in time for Jed’s “Radiant Landscape” show that opens on Saturday. I love it!

I call it a friendship sign because it was birthed and forged and built in friendship. The friendships stretch all the way back to high school classmates Jacob and Wade, to neighbors Melanie and Randy, to my kids Jackie and Jacob and new friend Todd, to Dad and Mom. It’s not just about past friendships though. I know that the sign will direct many people to our Studio where new friendships will be built.

That’s why I call it our “friendship sign.”