Over the past year and a half I have been working as a freelance sign writer under the name ‘Chalking Heads’; something I never expected would happen, but I’m certainly glad that it has.

I moved to Leeds in my early 20’s to study Fine Art at Leeds Met, and stuck around because I’m rather fond of the place. I’ve always been interested in working with my hands; I took a huge interest in learning how to use heavy duty machinery during my student years, and this developed further on an artist residency in Germany a few years back. There, I had access to a huge workshop, two badass Danish mentors, and a vast range of manual and power tools. The experience allowed me to expand my skill set, and it was pretty cool that I was being co-taught all of this by a woman, Maria Gondek.

Fast forward a few years and now I’m trying to make a living through a craft I respect and really enjoy. I got into sign writing through working in the hospitality trade, always jumping at the chance to write the daily specials or drinks offers on blackboards, and then invested in some chalk pens and challenged myself to get better at it. I approached Kieran Hadley (Third Eye Signs), who was happy to pass on his valuable knowledge and help develop my practice. Kieran specialises in traditional hand painted and custom lettering, and I now have the pleasure of working alongside him as he gives the shop fronts and building sides of Leeds a facelift.

An average day sign writing involves being up a ladder and contorting limbs to be at the right height of the surface I’m working on. It usually means being covered in paint, chalk and dust; due to working with power tools, harsh materials and often outdoors, my hands mostly look like they’re made of sandpaper (no matter how much I moisturise them), and more often than not, I have dried on paint fused between the cracks and nail beds; it’s extremely glamorous!
I’m often given creative license to do what I think works well, which is always plenty of fun. I’m not computer graphics based and prefer to design boards by hand and use good old fashioned maths and eye when drawing them up. Of course, every so often mistakes do happen, I’m only human after all; it’s certainly frustrating but you learn to make less time-consuming mistakes as you go; luckily they’re always fixable.

The majority of my work comes in the form of hand lettering and illustrating A-Boards / Menu boards within businesses dotted around Leeds. I’ve had the opportunity to make work for some amazing independents and had the pleasure of meeting the faces behind them, such as Jo Myers (The Swine That Dines), Lydia and Bobbi (Short Press), Warren J Jones (Mrs. Athas), Emma Bearman (Playful Anywhere), Ste Thomas (Rabbit Hole Travelling Coffee Shop), Rob and Illiana (The Tetley) Stephen and Sam (If Coffee), Simon and Kamil (Fettle), Rex Rixon (Rex’s Emporium) to name a few. It’s great that there is a fairly equal gender mix. And in the pipeline I’ll be making a sign for the incredible Leeds based embroidery queen Hayley Mills-Styles for her upcoming solo exhibition in September.

One of the best things I’ve learned about Sign Writing is the community of people within it; everyone looks out for one another, people are always sharing advice and skills and swapping learning material. There’s no prejudice or discrimination, and there are other women, such as calligrapher Ellie Hayward, doing amazing signs for places like Hyde Park Book Club. Even those at the top of their game are more than happy to support other artists, no matter who they are or what level they’re at. The general consensus of sign painters want the knowledge to be passed on to keep the craft alive, and hopefully one day I’ll get the opportunity to do the same for someone.