The inside spiral from the cutout of the big spiral; this piece hangs inside Vortex.

While many on Lopez don’t know her name, few are unfamiliar with her work. Indeed, for anyone who’s ever had coffee at Isabel’s, bought lamb from Bruce Dunlop, exercised on Vita Parcours, been to the Farmer’s Market or Maud’s Used Books and Groovy Gifts, or scores of other activities, places, and businesses, artist Brenna Jael Nies’ signs are as ubiquitous as bicyclists in the summer. Scrolling Nies’ sign website (http://islandsignpainter.blogspot.com/) begins to give one a sense of just how pervasive her work is on Lopez and what a unifying element it contributes to the community.

As a big fan of hand-painted signs in general and Nies’ work in particular, the first question posed to her is how she got started in what many consider an archaic profession. “I give the credit to Jean Perry at Vortex. About ten years ago, I was working there and she asked me to paint a sandwich board which was in bad shape. I don’t know why she asked me, since I’d never done anything like that before, but she liked what I did. Right after that, Liz Scranton asked me to do some sign work for the Land Trust and I’ve been painting signs ever since.”

Sitting in her cabin next to a roaring woodstove and surrounded by walls jammed with books, jars of herbs, and other implements of a comfortable, low-key life, Nies says that she likes the freedom of having her own business and particularly enjoys creating work that is both visually appealing and very practical. Also, “my signs have more soul” than something that’s computer or machine generated, as most signs today are.

She finds it “great to work directly with a client and experience that moment when I see that person’s vision for a sign or logo realized, although I always am apprehensive in the time between when I finish a sign and the client first sees it. They usually haven’t seen the work in progress and there’s anxiety over whether or not I’ve gotten it right.”

The process of creating a sign begins with Nies meeting her client, who may or may not have an existing logo, font preference, or design in mind. After the initial meeting, Nies makes a series of sketches, then, because she prefers to use recycled materials, finds the necessary board if she doesn’t have one, cuts and sands it, puts down base coats, and begins to lay out the design in colored pencils. “There’s a lot of drawing involved,” she says.

All of her signs are freehand, including the lettering, so she always does a rough painting. If that works, she covers it with a base coat for the actual sign, which is then clear-coated and presented to the client.

In addition to her signs, Nies began working in the field of sequential art with her “comix” less than two years ago. Nies warns that people looking for humor aren’t going to find it in her comix and drawings. What one does find, however, is real insight into Nies’ daily life on Amazon Ranch (as well as an explanation of what Amazon Ranch is).

She points out that any “melancholia” in her drawings and comix is likely a product of the region’s “climate and darkness.” Nies has deep roots in this area, coming from a family that has been in the Skagit Valley since the late 1800’s. She reflects, in an observation that further explains her propinquity to hand-painted signs, that “most of the time, I feel like I’m living in the wrong century because I’m living a lifestyle more like my pioneer ancestors than my parents or grandparents did.”

To commission a sign or business design, Nies may be contacted at 468-4585 or brennajael@gmail.com.

Living in a cabin that is off the grid, Nies admits to idealizing that earlier period in time, not just in the way she lives but in her preference for older fonts and design styles. Now, though, almost 150 signs later, Brenna Nies has made an indelible mark on Lopez and become a part of any Lopezian’s image of the island today.