SACG's Fourth Growing Season Brings New Sign and Logo

We are blessed at the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden in many, many ways. For the past three years, we have benefitted from a beautiful sign painted by a former neighborhood gardener, Dwayne Penny. We have loved his folksy sign, which reminds me of an antique cross-stitch design one might see on a home-made quilt. From time to time over the years, a car would stop just to take a picture of our sign. One photographer told me that she was from New York City and was taking the pictures for a college class project back East. I have convinced myself that pictures of Dwayne’s sign are hanging in some New York Gallery. However, the weather has not been kind to our beautiful sign and the paint was beginning to peel. We had hoped that Dwayne would be able to repair the sign by touching up the paint. Unfortunately, Dwayne has moved back to the East Coast where he has family and a better job as a brick mason.

What to do. What to do.

We have another extremely talented artist whose wife gardens with us. John often joins us on strawberry picking expeditions, came last year to help us clean up the Garden and came this March to set it out. No good deed should go unpunished. When I realized that Dwayne would be unable to repair our sign, I impulsively asked John if he would do so. After all, John had painted the gigantic mural now hanging in COTA’s paratransit facility. He’s a well-known professional. How difficult could it be to repair our simple and small sign?

On Saturday, while Tom and I were building raised garden beds, John and Mari dropped by with our new sign. Ta Da! John created a brand new sign and logo for us that still has elements of our old sign.  It is as bold and playful as our former sign was quaint and sweet. Not only is it stunning, but it is also computerized. This means that we can create t-shirts and bandanas and reusable grocery/tote bags with it. Ahhhh. The possibilities. That’s what happens when you ask a professional graphic artist for a favor.

I hope that you will as excited about our new sign as Rayna and I are. With any luck, Frank and Barb will be able to hang it over the SACG front gate within the week. (Then, I will try to get a picture of John next to our kick-butt sign).   Let the photographers come:)

Thanks John!