“I moved to Bay City and got a job doing sales at a car dealership. I like cars, especially old cars, and I enjoyed doing that for a couple of years. But when I got married, things started to change. For me, the schedule wasn't ideal as a married person—being at the dealership late, always having to go in on my weekend off. I’m also a creative person, and I felt like I wasn’t using that part of myself. I want to be a good steward of what I've been blessed with and what talents that I have, so I started looking for something else.
I mentioned that I’m an old car guy, and there was a place in Saginaw called American Gasser I had my sights on. They do hot rods and custom cars and I thought, ‘I could do something like that.’ So I walked in there one day with my resume and talked with the manager. He took it and said that they weren’t hiring, but that he’d keep me in mind. I thanked him and went back to my job. About six months later, I decided I just couldn’t do it anymore, so I went back to the hot rod shop and asked them again if they had any openings for me.
They said they’d give me a chance.
I started out part-time and then went full time. It was a cool atmosphere. The body shop manager was an old school sign painter and pinstriper, Gary Floate. He’s a great artist, and I had him pinstriping something for me after work one day. At that point, I knew what pinstriping and sign painting were, but I had very little knowledge about the craft behind it.
He had some extra paint leftover and said, ‘Want to give it a try?’ He takes a dirty rag and wipes the dust off the top of my toolbox. He lays a pin stripe down on one side, and then hands me the brush and tells me to copy him.
I make a line, shaky and rough, and hand the brush back to him. He does another line and hands it back. We do that until the whole top of my toolbox lid is covered with pinstripes.
It was like a lightbulb went off for me—everything just clicked.
That night I went home and ordered some paint and brushes, and for the next couple of years, it was a deep dive into pinstriping and sign painting. I love being creative, I like history and nostalgia. You look at the late 1800s and early 1900s, and farm machinery, industrial equipment, old safes, all this stuff was decorated with these pinstripes. You can take a flat object and bring it to life. You put that on cars, trucks, motorcycles, and airplanes, and things get even more interesting. Signs—there is so much you can do with a sign.
I had always wanted to do something creative and work for myself, so I decided to give it a shot. In retrospect, I dove into self-employment too soon, but then again, you're never really ready. You’ve got to make that jump, learn as you go, sink or swim.
I kind of hold the notion that whatever your craft is, whatever you're devoted to, if you're a student wanting to be a master of your craft, you will never stop learning. You’re always learning and evolving. I'm hoping that 50 years from now, if I'm still around and still able to do this stuff, I'll still be learning something new.”
—Justin Stilson, Stilson Sign and Custom
“At Stilson Sign and Custom, I do sign painting and pinstriping. I do work for people who want something different, unique, and made by hand, whether that’s on a sign, a motorcycle, or a classic car. I do wood boats and classic boats and restorations, antique restorations of things, old vehicles, truck lettering, the people that want the stuff done the way it used to be done. For business owners, it's a way to stand out and give them a unique identity where they don't have the same look as every other shop.
I really enjoy being creative and this is such a good outlet for it. Every project is different, and I never know what project is going to be next. Today, I'm doing the pinstriping and gold leaf on a motorcycle. Tomorrow, I'm going up north to the Charlevoix area to gold leaf some boats. Next week, a guy is restoring an old school 1930s tanker truck and wants that lettered up to look like an old service station truck, so I get to do that. I have a couple of people on my list that want some lettering done on their hot rods.
I love looking through old photographs of old school drag cars and race cars that were all hand lettered with crazy names on them and pinstriping and graphics. I love looking at photos of old downtown streetscapes that had painted windows that were littered with different styles. It’s just, that nostalgia that really fuels me. Nostalgia evokes emotion, it kind of demands a response. And everybody experiences it in different ways: a certain smell of a food they remember from their grandma’s house growing up, or going to a ballgame with their son reminds them of going to a ballgame with their dad. It makes you feel and gives you a window into the past and allows you to relive those emotions over and over again. I've always been somebody that kind of felt like I should have been born in the past, so this is just fuel on the fire for that. It creates this drive and inspiration for me, and in some ways helps me feel like I’m living what it would have been like in the past.
—Justin Stilson, Stilson Sign and Custom
“People have me do gifts for loved ones and in a sense, I’m helping create meaningful memories and things that are going to be passed on. Something that is handmade won’t get tossed in a year—they’re unique and thoughtful pieces that are likely going to stay in the family for years to come. A customer of mine, her dad had a jewlery store with a big old safe in the basement. Years went by and eventually that safe was taken out and cut up into pieces and removed. But he always liked that safe. So she had me fabricated and painted a faux safe door to give to him as a gift. She has told me time and time again how much her dad loves that piece and how much it meant to him.
You hear people say, ‘What can I get this guy? If he wants something, he buys it’ or ‘he’s so hard to shop for.’
But this is the type of stuff you can't get anywhere else.”
—Justin Stilson, Stilson Sign and Custom
