Moses Lake woman paints life, passion in art work

MOSES LAKE - "People think lettering is so cool now, they call it 'retro'. Then I think gosh, how old am I?" said 48-year-old Alesha Radach, a Moses Lake lettering artist.

Lettering has become a digitized, quick-and-easy process, as computer programs and sophisticated printers can produce just about any vinyl type of artwork, logo or lettering often placed on cars and buildings, in addition to a number of other surfaces.

But that's not how Radach came to know her lettering art form, which she uses enamel paint to create.

"It's awesome to be able to do something not a lot of people do, and keep the art form alive," she said.

Radach learned lettering after getting an art degree from Big Bend Community College in the early 1980s and then traveling to Boise, Idaho, for a year receiving an apprenticeship with a lettering business.

"I earned $4.50 per hour. I lived off of Ramen noodles during that whole year. Co-workers would share half a sandwich here and there. But I wanted it so bad. When I ran out of money, I would ride my bike to work," she remembered.

Radach said she remembered being one of two females in the office.

"People think it's so cute when you say you're a painter. But people don't think of the long hours you have to put in, where you are just standing there on a ladder, painting the letters on the building. Regardless of weather, I'm out there on a ladder. Sometimes its freezing and other times it so hot. But either way, you have to stand out there and paint," she said.

While in Boise, Radach said, she learned from the lettering masters and the hard work involved in using paint to draw on a variety of surfaces.

She noted the hardest part of lettering is pin-stripping, where a thin and often long line has to be drawn without lifting the paintbrush from the surface.

"You can't stop in the middle of the line ... the paint gets all messed up and so does the line. Pin-stripping took me 12 years to master," she aid.

Her formative efforts paid off.

In 1990, she started her lettering business, Alesha's Graphics and Lettering, and business boomed.

"I was getting a lot of business, I worked 12 hours every day, rain or shine," she said.

Lettering clients included many downtown Moses Lake restaurants, buildings and car-buffs.

Notable past lettering work included painting the logo and picture on the plane used in the romantic comedy movie, "Always," a 1989 movie directed by Steven Spielberg.

She was also asked to create a Pepsi mural by a Wenatchee beverage company inside a grocery store.

"While I was working on the mural, the president of Pepsi came into the store. I asked him 'So what brings you to Moses Lake?' and he said 'You're mural. I like your ice better than what's in our boxes,'" she remembered.

She said she called her husband afterwards.

"I just couldn't believe what had happened," she said.

But she said business tapered in 1998, when businesses specializing in vinyl lettering started to compete with her business.

"I couldn't compete with the price of vinyl. It was heartbreaking to see the (art form) die," she said.

But the slight business downturn allowed her to explore other art forms, said Radach.

"I got to get into airbrushing and some painting, too," she said.

After being in the lettering business for more than 20 years, Radach said she has been exploring other art forms.

"I just love to paint. Whenever I can get a paintbrush in my hand, I'm happy," she said.

She currently receives most of her work through word-of-mouth referrals.

"If you do a good job, people want you back," she said.

She took a break from her lettering business in April, after an illness was discovered.

Since then, she has discovered other art forms, most recently having an oil painting accepted into a Moses Lake Museum and Art Center art show in January.

"I'd really still love to learn how to sculpt," she said.