JACKETS, PAINT, AND VINTAGENTS

A reader from Turkey, apparently a graphic artist, sent the photo below, of his homage á Vintagent...I can certainly get behind the motto (it applies to my motorcycles, among other things...), although the Tim Burton characters aren't my cup of tea.

So I suppose it's time I came out of the closet as an artist - I used to paint jackets for my friends, back in the 1980's - here is a selection of my favorites (or at least, the ones I bothered to photograph!). The jackets at top were snapped at the top of Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County, on Easter Sunday, 1987, at sunrise. The
'Easter ride' was for 10 years a fun and slightly arduous pre-dawn foray to the top of the nearest mountain; usually we left SF at 4am, with flashlights or bicycle lights taped to our handlebars if Joe Lucas weren't cooperating, to freeze in the foggy chill and hopefully catch a glimpse of a weak orange sun before tearing back down the hill for breakfast. That's my 'Velocette' jacket, still performing reliably, although seriously patinated at this point. The skull with mohawk image is stolen from Vivienne Westwood's original from the 'Sex' collection ca.1976; hers was made from chicken bones wired together!

The Panther jacket celebrated Wendy's wondrously slow Model 75, purchased from Hollis Button. Terribly reliable though, and she rode it Everywhere in the late 80's, often catching a retinue of young hopefuls; you would have followed her too...

Denise loved her blue Velocette Venom enough to enlarge the Veloce, Ltd headstock transfer; the 'Naughty Lady' has always been a favorite of the cognoscenti (photo by moto-journalist Andy Saunders, ca. '89).

Guy had these 'drama masks' tattooed on his arm, and wanted it visible when he was riding. Yes that's Wendy, and a very young yours truly, before her little blue Panther.

Lest we not forget the sacred, Bill commissioned a Triskelion with the Manx logo 'quocunque jeceris stabit' ('where you throw me, I stand'). And of course, our model (a hirsute pd'o) sits on a Norton, albeit a Commando Fastback, ca '69, owned by Craig, the white-scarfed Rocker bemusedly occupying the front steps of a decrepit Victorian, in a then-notorious neighborhood, which of course is nowadays Very Expensive...

And occasionally a client with a Job would commission leather-abuse; Joe preferred a leather-clad Rocker supplant winged Mercury on his Vincent logo, although he's probably the only such to hold a caduseus!

It's hard to look tough when your avatar is Tinkerbell...but, Alison was game to follow my exuberant riding on her own bikes, sometimes ending up in a ditch for her efforts! The jacket held up to the scuffs and insults of pavement, but a few damp Australian winters have taken their toll on the leather - fix it Tink!

Victor, the actor, wanted a dramatic logo for his LA gang to follow, so it was Laughing Death with dice spilling from his ghastly jaws... all in good fun.

And no, I haven't done a jacket for a long time, and don't intend to; now it's up to the young Turks, so to speak, to have their turn...






As an addendum - here is what my jacket looks like 20 years later: Scuffed, scarred, faded, abraded, and just about perfect.