Feature Article October 7, 2004
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Sign makers get together near Parhamby Jeff Green
What do you get when you gather about 20 sign painters from near and far, and let them loose on an unsuspecting trail riding farm for a weekend? A whole bunch of unusual, irreverent signs that will transform a drive shed forever, and a mural to boot.
Letterheads is a loosely knit group of people from the sign industry across the continent who get together at about 50 events each year. By Letterheads standards, the event hosted by sign maker Rodger MacMunn and Lynn and Leslie Cronk of Eastern Cowboy Horseback Adventures was relatively small. The last event in Eastern Ontario took place in Cornwall in 2001 and there were 400 participants.
The idea for last weekends event came about quickly. MacMunn had been looking for a few projects for an event he had been planning on hosting when Leslie Cronk approached him this summer about some signage. So Rodger went to the Cronk farm to have a look.
What he found were several small buildings and a shed with three openings and an attached, enclosed room. 
When
Leslie Cronk told Rodger MacMunn that she thought it would be nice to
have a mural on the wall, he quickly realised there would be a full
project available at the one location, with the mural as a centrepiece.
He contacted Donna Larocque of St. Georges Lake, a portrait artist and sign maker, to head up the mural project. Donna Larocque took on the project with tremendous zeal, working portraits of Lyn and Leslie Cronk, and their four daughters, into a 2 by 4 painting On the weekend, Larocque and two other painters worked diligently, using the painting as a maquette, to produce a mural.
The result is overwhelming for Leslie Cronk. I had an idea about a mural, but it would never have happened. What theyve done is make something that will certainly make time stand still for our family, she said.
Another local visual artist, Heather Hugh Macfarlane, joined the crew of sign painters who came from places as disparate as Unity, Saskatchewan, New York City, Kenora, Maryland, and North Carolina.
People go to Letterheads events to see what other people are doing, MacMunn said. If you cant learn something as a sign maker at one of these events, then you shouldnt be in the business.
Sign makers are also a bit of a strange lot, according to MacMunn, who certainly fits the bill, and Letterheads events are great social occasions as well.
Because of the unique circumstances at the Eastern Cowboy Horseback Adventures site, Letterheads participants were offered free accommodation and meals. At most Letterheads events there is a cost to participants, which can add up to several hundred dollars, but this event was free to participants.
Aside
from the mural, there were a variety of different kinds of flat and
relief signs made, all of which will be on permanent display at the
site onc
e they are mounted over the next month or so.
This probably wont be the last Letterheads event to be held in Central Frontenac. Even though Rodger MacMunn said it is more fun to go to an event than to run one, he does have an idea for a large event that might come about in a few years time, but he is keeping the details to himself.
