Sign of the times: Amy Goodwin's hand-painted signage honours traditional fairground art

Amy Goodwin grew up immersed in the sights and sounds of steam fairs. Her family provided the steam engines that powered the vintage fairground rides, so she spent her summers moving between events in the west of England. ‘We lived on the boundary between being travellers and being a settled community,’ she says. ‘The fairground gets into your blood – at least, it did for me.’ That experience, coupled with her love of heritage and craft, drew her to a career in signwriting.

When we speak over video call, I can’t help being distracted: Goodwin has one of the most engaging Zoom backgrounds going. Positioned beside her in her garden studio at home in Falmouth is an unfinished panel in vivid technicolour, surrounded by planning sketches, while behind her is a piece by Hall & Fowle, fairground painters renowned in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s for their flamboyant, futuristic style. ‘They were brilliant – I’ve actually just made an artwork inspired by them for a group show, Making It, currently at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen. I’ve taken their 1950s style but used a contemporary approach, updating their aesthetic to appeal to today’s eyes.’ To do this, Goodwin has used a di-bond panel as her base – which altered the finish and increased the vibrancy of her enamel paints. She adds: ‘It’s about being informed by the past but elaborating and evolving it in some way.’

Alongside creating one-off artworks such as this for galleries and collectors, she also juggles a busy schedule of on-site commissions for clients ranging from independent shops to steam engine museums that take her around the country with her ladder and enamel paints, while also lecturing about typography and narrative illustration on several BA courses.

While traditional signwriting is enjoying a resurgence, fairground art is at risk of becoming endangered. ‘My intention is to broaden its scope: particularly the contexts in which it is seen. By showcasing fairground art in a gallery, I’m narrowing the gap between what’s seen as a craft and how it can also be art.’

Despite her fairground roots, Goodwin’s journey took some twists – first art school, then architecture studies – before she learned her craft with Joby Carter of Carters Steam Fair. Then came an MA at Falmouth University in Illustration: Authorial Practice. Despite her fairground roots, Goodwin’s journey took some twists – first art school, then architecture studies – before she learned her craft with Joby Carter of Carters Steam Fair. Then came an MA at Falmouth University in Illustration: Authorial Practice. ‘It was about using illustration to tell a personal story,’ she explains. ‘I used signwriting to tell tales about the fairground. I wanted to uncover and preserve the stories of five early 20th-century women I’d heard about – fairgrounds are renowned for this kind of storytelling.’

Funding from QEST supported her in turning the project into a PhD. Her research involved interviewing the women’s descendants and combing through newspapers and photographs at the National Fairground and Circus Archive to piece together their lives. This informed a series of signs and texts that tell their stories, brought together in an exhibition titled Fragments of Fairground Females (shown recently at London’s Cecil Sharp House). They are bold, graphic pieces, each in a different style to convey the times in which the individual lived, and bearing descriptive snippets of text.

‘All five women were interesting in their own right, and all were connected to the social, political and cultural happenings of their times,’ says Goodwin. What motivated the project? ‘I was conscious how, within the fairground community, women are not represented or appreciated as much as the men,’ she explains. ‘I wanted to uncover and preserve their lives.’ Next she wants to have both signs and texts turned into a book.

Goodwin’s feminist ambitions also found expression in the project she considers her most significant: repainting a Scammell Showtrac fairground lorry. ‘There were only 18 made, so it was a rare opportunity. It was owned by the great-grandson of the original owner, who wanted to include his name and add the phrase “& Daughters”. It’s usually always “& Sons”, so it was quite a moment for that family, fairground history and for me.’

Such a task is deeply meticulous and requires both patience and precision. ‘I start by drawing various designs to explore size, colours and composition to come up with something the client is happy with.’ Everything is done by hand: no CAD or Rhino software are used here. Goodwin even spurns the use of tape when painting lines: ‘Signwriting’s not supposed to be mathematically precise – it shouldn’t look like a computer made it.’

a-goodwinsignwriting.com