Maybe you’re a brick & mortar business looking to build your brand’s resonance through distinctively crafted signs. (If so, kindly ignore our tribal children, above.)

Maybe you seek to enrich the culture of your home with hand-painted art & furnishings. You know, the kind you will never, ever find in big-box stores. Yet still affordable.

Or maybe you’re a fellow creative wondering how to craft a sustainable life out of your hands & wits. Oh, & yeah, all those life accessories, too. Like the day job. Or that family hanging around, asking to be fed. (So irritating.)

Whoever you are, welcome. We’re glad you’ve joined us.

Here at Bare Root Studio in Denver, Colorado, you will find you’re not alone in your appreciation for fine craft, design, handmade culture, real food, humor, traditional ways & other things Wall Street finds threatening.

We’ve been hand-painting commercial & creative signs for close to thirty years now, all over the U.S. Right now, genuinely hand-lettered signs are enjoying a resurgence at the hippest edge of hip, of course. But we’ve kept at it right on through those years when people thought sign painting was going the way of iron corsets.

Why? Because thoughtfully crafting a product  — whether it be a sign, written content or whatever else comes from human hands, hearts & brains — simply feels better than slapping something crappy up on the street, a wall, the table or the web. You know?

We think you do.

We’re Johnny D & Angie Lanham True, by the way. John is the sign painter on the left (male). Angie is the writer on the right (female). We’re married.

We have four children who went from being like daisies to menacing daisies to actual people. Some are still transitioning. But soon we’ll be the daisies.

It’s already begun. See? Our extremely tall oldest son took this photo.

Our Twitter bio says it all: We’re the nicest handmade commies, eco tuffs & real food activists you’ll ever meet. We help keep homes, businesses & dinners from smelling like Febreze.

Currently we’re on a mission to pull all the moving pieces of our lives — art, literature, business, homecraft, family, planet –  together. Preferably without any gunshot wounds.

Can relate, no? Read more about our graceful journey here.

Or, for FREE weekly updates to your inbox, complete with dynamic cultural observations, interviews & tips for better living through funk, subscribe to Angie’s Bare Root People blog below:

“Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.” Albert Camus