It’s more likely than not that driving around the North Fork, you’ve seen a Jim Fetten sign.
Since 1969, Fetten has put his artistic skills to use creating custom graphics for towns, stores, restaurants and other businesses, but along the way found his niche — gilding gold leaf on fire trucks and other emergency vehicles and restoring antiques.
Fetten’s journey started while studying to be an art teacher. He attended Nassau Community College for two years and then Hofstra University, where he ultimately graduated with a bachelor’s in fine arts in the 1970s.
Through his education, Fetten worked for various sign companies in Hicksville, Syosset and Glen Cove. By the time graduation rolled around, he strayed from his original plan of teaching to continue down the sign making path.
“I had to work at it,” says Fetten. “I wasn’t a natural. I was going to Hofstra at the time for art, but art really didn’t help with the sign business because being a sign painter is like being a craftsman, it’s a discipline.”
In 1972, Fetten moved to Greenport — and later to Jamesport — while continuing his work at a sign shop in Glen Cove. He then founded his own sign company out of the building at 28970 Main Road in Cutchogue called North Fork Signs, but later closed with a colleague opening under his businesses name while Fetten took contracted work.
Around 1983, the first computers started to threaten the sign business. Being that computers could create a sign but not specialized lettering, Fetten honed his skills.
While the sign times were changing, Fetten started working on fire trucks, making connections with top lettering professionals in the industry.
Bob Whelan, another artist in the fire truck lettering industry, enlisted Fetten’s help while also teaching him specialized scroll — the design used on emergency vehicles.
From there, Fetten has continued in the business, serving as the premier lettering professional gilding gold leaf on all North Fork fire trucks, plus other departments trucks on Long Island.
Fetten, who is also a member of the Jamesport Fire Department, loves every step of the process, he says, from coordinating with the leaders in the fire district to planning the design after seeing the trucks at the station.
“I kid with [my wife] Carol Anne because I tell her I have to meet with the truck and see what it wants to look like,” says Fetten. “Because I go there and I look at the truck and I look at the lines and I try to find out what I think will be the best rendition of it.”
He has expanded his expertise to restoring antique fire vehicles around the country, including steam fire engine in Maine, among many others.
Fetten has continued making signs on the side, but his main focus is on gold leaf, booking clients through his website from near and far; for those off the Island, he creates vinyl designs that can be applied later.
To inquire about Fetten’s work click here.
