My name is TJ Ghazadi and I'm a sign painter.
I got into the art of painting and pinstriping through my parents.
Ever since I was a little kid, a dad used to put on and build hot rods and pretty much
the whole culture was around me ever since I was a little kid, so it sort of just kind
of fell into it.
Yeah originally I was just practicing at the workshop, my dad's shop and just on bits
of tin and stuff was lying around and dad one day said hey do you want to do my kind
of like oh I would give it a thrash and from there someone saw me pinstriping it and they
asked me to do their cast, I was just through friends and then from there I just started
getting little jobs here and there, never really thought I could do more than what I've
done in the last year I guess.
I got myself out of pinstripe when I was 15, got influenced by a guy Paul Quayphy who pinstriped
my double bass and just since then I sort of just was practicing and then yeah just from
that I guess.
This is my little hideaways called my cave, I like to hide in here and just have all the
stuff I love around me, my kids and my wife and just all my old stuff that I find pretty
much on the side of the road.
I reckon a lot of people are going back to where how they're building their restaurants
or it's a lot of it is actually hand crafted itself so they're like why not get a hand
crafted sign, the sign itself will you'll stop and drive oh wow that's a hand painted
sign and it shows that there's actual character in the restaurant itself or the business.
I kind of just show to say you want a sign painted by me I'll draw a real rough sketch,
I wouldn't sit there and render it or anything I sort of just kind of have a half idea what
I'm going to do and then pretty much start painting it and as I'm painting I change it
or the colours will come to me while I'm painting and I never really know what I'm going to
have a finished product before I finish it.
It's only paint, I always say to people it's not a tattoo, in the end of the day you get
some turps out and you can wipe it off and start again.
