Classic Nashville: Hatch Show Print Posters

Posters done by Hatch Show Print are iconic Americana, connected to some of the most significant performances--and not just country music-- in U.S. popular culture and social history.

(Photos by Cheryl-Anne Millsap)


They are instantly recognizable. The signature block print. The simple graphics. The bold type.


Last spring, visiting Nashville, Tennessee, I was able to spend an hour with manager Jim Sherraden poking around the shop. Everywhere I looked, I stumbled onto a name or event that was familiar.

Even as I snapped photos, staff were working on posters for an upcoming Neil Young concert.

Hatch Show Print is now a non-profit operated by the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Here's a tip: you don't have to be a celebrity or aspiring talent to have your own signature poster. (Minimum orders start at 250 posters.)

This month's Country Living Magazine features a short profile of Hatch Show Print. You can view the behind-the-scenes tour here

A Case for the Pencil

(Photo by Cheryl-Anne Millsap)




My world is full of complex machines. I live by my computer, my phone goes everywhere with me--I even have it on a table beside the tub when I take a bubble bath.

But I have a long-running love affair with a much simpler instrument. The pencil. Preferably the yellow Dixon Ticonderoga #2. The same pencil I've been writing notes with since I was a schoolgirl.

The other day, prowling through Roost, an antiques shop in Spokane, I found a vintage Made-in-England pencil case worthy of my Ticonderogas. I brought it home and now it sits on my desk full of freshly-sharpened yellow pencils ready for work.

As I wrote in my Spokesman-Review Treasure Hunting antiques blog, a pencil is good for first thoughts. It feels right in the hand, balances on the end of a finger. A pencil forgives, erasing what you want to change.

Souvenirs

(Photo by Cheryl-Anne Millsap)


I've been writing about antiques and collectibles for The Spokesman-Review since 2003. Over the years I've talked about the things we collect or inherit or simply fall in love with and have to have. Some are are big-ticket items brought out for events like the Antiques Roadshow. Others are more humble, trinkets picked up at thrift stores and junk shops.

This week I took a look around my own house. And I realized that everything in it comes with a story, if not a lot of value. This week's column was about the antique dough bowl in the photo above.