From Nye’s to Betty’s Pies: A Minneapolis designer photographs the signs of Minnesota
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Kelsi Sharp strolls around a gallery, reflecting on the photo collection she’s built of signs around Minnesota.
These include classics from Nye’s Polonaise Room in Minneapolis and Betty’s Pies on the North Shore. The collection also includes unsung heroes, hidden in alleyways in Stillwater and behind new construction in St. Paul.
“There’s this thing that painters used to do in the Renaissance — you would emulate the masters,” Sharp says. “I feel like I’m just moving around, understanding the legacy of all these folk artists who have been in this trade before me, and it’s romantic and super fun and just life-affirming.”
Sharp is a Minneapolis-based designer and sign painter. Her photos are on view for the exhibition “Greetings From” in the Gage and Christensen Galleries at Augsburg University in Minneapolis.
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Sharp also painted signs directly on the gallery walls, including those from Grain Belt, Betty’s Pies, Nye’s, Park & Lake Car Wash, the Stardust Hotel and Marty’s Deli. Sharp painted the sign for the actual Marty’s Deli in Northeast Minneapolis.
“There are some big cities in the U.S. in terms of hand-painted signage, and I would say Minneapolis is one of the big ones for sure,” Sharp says.
MPR News went on a driving tour with Sharp to some of her favorite signs in the Twin Cities, starting with the Hard Times Cafe on the West Bank, which features a lime green facade with large white hand lettering curling with flourishes. Sharp points out it was done by Phil Vandervaart, one of Minnesota’s leading sign painters.
“This is his newest iteration. It is a Tuscan lettering style,” Sharp says. “It's a super, super funky hand-drafted lettering style with a cute little shadow, all that shading and flourishes.”
In Dinkytown, there’s Annie’s Parlour, which has layers of signs painted over the decades.
“It has a bunch of signs wrapping the building 360 degrees,” says Sharp. “Some of them are really cool, because you can only see them from the greenways. So, there’s signs just designed for pedestrians versus signs designed to be viewed from a car, and that's really sweet.”
Then it’s the nearby college bar Stub and Herbs: “It kind of has a nice West Bank color palette, so it’s maroon and gold, and it kind of has this Cooper Black-inspired lettering style,” Sharp says. “It has a cute little sassy ampersand.”
Sharp loves the Cooper Black typeface because it makes her think of her hometown, Santa Fe.
“It reminds me of the Santa Fe Railroad lettering, the BNSF train car lettering,” Sharp says. “When I’m sitting at a bar in northeast and I see the BNSF train cars go by, I think about it like the moon, where it’s like, my family’s looking up at that same moon.”
In St. Paul, Sharp stares up at five-foot-tall lettering on a brick wall behind a chain-link fence. It’s the side of the Big Wood Timber Frames building on East 7th Street. The wall is obscured because a building went up next door leaving only a tiny alleyway. “Big Wood Timber Frames” lettering seamlessly flows around chimneys and pillars.
“It’s incredible,” Sharp says. “It’s designed to be viewed as you’re driving by.”
The final stop is at Sharp’s own shop on East Lake Street in Minneapolis. The storefront is powder pink with tidy black lettering. She hired fellow Minneapolis sign painter Forrest Wozniak to do it.
“People are always like, ‘Oh, you didn’t get to paint your own shop?” Sharp says. “If you're a dressmaker, does that mean you don't want to wear Gucci to your own wedding?”
“Greetings From” is on view through June 30 at Augsburg University.
