Toronto Sun Article 

By Jil Mcintosh

The art of the pinstripe

Artist loves to lay down the lines
Dying skill starting to rev up again

Dec. 10, 2005. 01:00 AM

JIL MCINTOSH

SPECIAL TO THE STAR
  

Craig Williams shows one of his hand-pulled pinstripes,
painted with a brush made from squirrel hair.

In a quick-fix automotive world where customization is just a peel-and-stick graphic away, Craig Williams is an old-school craftsman.

Armed with cans of paint and tiny brushes, Williams is one of a handful of artists keeping the tradition of pinstriping alive.

"Everything old is new again and we're starting to go back to the roots," he says. "Guys are building 1950s-flavour hot rods, and they want to make it their own."

A self-taught striper who goes by the name Thrall Pinstripe ("thrall means consumed by passion or vice," he explains), the 32-year-old Colborne resident works as a forklift driver for Kraft Foods.

In his spare time, he "lays down lines," as it's called, on everything from hot rods and motorcycles to the decorated bowling pins and light-switch covers he sells at car shows.

Pinstriping, called "hand-pulled lines" because of the way the brush is pulled along, still hasn't returned to the heights it achieved during its heyday in the 1960s. But it is coming back — when car owners can track down a striper.

"I can only think of about six guys doing it in the GTA," Williams says. "As far as I know, I'm the only guy this far east until Kingston."

Pinstriping dates from horse and buggy days, when decorative lines were painted on carriages. The practice continued onto early automobiles, with factory workers hand-painting straight lines along the length of the body. It was time-consuming, and as assembly lines sped up, the stripes were reserved for the priciest models. It was phased out in the late 1930s.

It was revived in the 1950s by Los Angeles artist Kenny Howard, better known as Von Dutch. He died in 1992 and would undoubtedly be infuriated by the current use of his signature logo on hats and T-shirts.

He was proud of his self-inflicted poverty, and even his friends described him as a violent, racist, alcoholic recluse. But the man could create anything from handmade knives to motorcycles, and he could paint.

Von Dutch took the straight lines of the early stripers and turned them into symmetrical patterns. It was picked up by many other automotive artists, including Ed "Big Daddy" Roth and George Barris. Each tried to outdo the others, until the designs looked like spaghetti.

"It was one extreme to the other," Williams says. "I try to keep my designs fairly simple because I like that cleaner, older- style look. I think the space in between the lines is probably more important than the paint lines themselves, because it keeps it in balance."

Striping died down in the 1980s, when tastes ran to monotone paint jobs and smooth, unadorned cars, and many stripers packed up their kits for good.

Williams credits some of the returning popularity to high-profile shows like Overhaulin'.

"You see guys like (Chip) Foose putting it on their million-dollar hot rods," he says.

"They always finish with a little bit of pinstripe. I think shows like that are starting to raise awareness of the whole auto phenomenon, and some of that is over into the striping world."

Like most stripers, Williams doesn't use a pattern, but paints directly on the car.

"I draw my inspiration from other guys' artwork and change it, and once it goes through my eye and out my hand it's different, and it's mine," he says. "Sometimes the automobile inspires you to do whatever comes out.

"It adds character, attitude and social status, because I've found that anybody who's had his car striped, well, his buddies like the car better now. Striping is cool because a lot of these guys aren't aware of how it's done and they think it's vinyl peel-and-stick, but it's painted."

Williams uses oil-based enamel that can be removed with solvents that won't damage the car's original finish.

"If I make a mistake, my thinners don't touch your paint," he says. "Two years from now, if you decide you don't want it, I can lift that paint off and buff it out."

His specialized brushes are called camel-hair, but they're really made of squirrel hair.

It isn't an easy art; pinstriping demands a steady hand, the ability to draw a symmetrical pattern freehand and, most importantly, an eye for determining what design will work best on the car being painted.

 Prices include all taxes, shipping charges will be extra. 

  Thanks for your interest ! Darren