This was perhaps the most unexpected outcome of a job that I've ever experienced, and the story "bears" telling. These two signs were made in 2003 for a restaurant and pub being opened in Canada. The client was a local woman who had a family connection in a town in northern Ontario, and ordered these signs in the fall, with the instruction that they were to be ready for the end of November. Around December 1st she came to the shop, approved the finished signs and paid the balance due in full - approxamately $9000 - and asked us to hold the signs until the end of the year, when she planned to pick them up for transport to Ontario.

Well, months went by, with no word from the client. She did not return phone calls, but as the signs had been paid for, I didn't worry about it. In the summer of 2004 I found out, secondhand, that the Ontario project had been abruptly cancelled and the property sold. Still no word from the client, so the signs were hung up inside my shop, to wait for some sort of resolution.

Fast forward to 2006.... the coach of the local Stonington High School Girls' Basketball team came by to order a small sign to commemorate a State Championship. Stonington's mascot is a bear, and the school had just finished a new gymnasium, so I suggested the wall sign (the horizontal sign above left) , with a small modification, might look good in the new gym.

Now it appears that this is going to happen! Today the coach and the Athletic Director came by to look at the sign, and pending a final decision, the sign will go up in the new Stonington Bears gymnasium. Meanwhile, the second sign - with the bear cub holding a mug of beer on his belly - will still be in my shop, waiting, perhaps forever, for a new home.
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