Rainbow Fish with Chimes

I’m very happy with this beauty, a rainbow fish sign with wind chimes! Like all of my signs, this was hand painted and assembled in my studio here in Fishtown. It’s the first sign I’ve made with chimes and they sound great, instantly adding an element of calm to the air. This may be the first one, but it’s definitely not the last.

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Stuffed Rainbow Trout

It’s a trout that’s stuffed!

There's nothing better than a stuffed fish and this trout recipe will not disappoint. Look at those two fish, they were swimming around looking for Nemo not too long ago.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil

• 2 medium rainbow trout (whole)

• Salt and pepper (to taste)

• PC Fish Seasoning powder (to taste)

• Lemons (sliced)

• Fresh parsley

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
On a cookie sheet, lightly drizzle some olive oil onto aluminum foil. Rinse two medium whole trout with water; pat dry with paper towel. Drizzle some olive oil on the outside of the fish and season the cavity with salt, pepper, and PC Fish Seasoning powder. Add lemon slices inside the cavity and some fresh parsley.

Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes and check for doneness. Add more time if needed. Not too much time… don’t ruin it!

Tarpon Sign

For this sign the client didn’t want the official Fishtown Shad fish, he wanted a fish that I had never heard of, a tarpon. Keep an eye out and you might catch a glimpse of this beauty.

This fish is found in the Atlantic Ocean and is considered one of the great saltwater game fishes, if lucky, you just might catch a glimpse of it in Fishtown. I bet this Tarpon put up a good fight!

Enjoy this Tarpon Recipe:

You probably don’t want to eat tarpon. This advice is based on sheer practicality. Tarpon is smelly, has far too many bones to be practical, and doesn’t taste particularly better than any other fish. The best way to enjoy it is to poach the crap out of it and then make fish cakes with plenty of spices and aromatics so you don’t really taste the tarpon.

Even then, you’re probably better off just going to the store and picking up some salmon filets. They’ll taste better and are much, much easier to prepare.

Tarpon Fish Cakes Recipe

Ingredients:

about 2 quarts chicken broth or stock

3-4 lbs of cleaned and skinned tarpon fillets

1 onion, finely chopped

1 bell pepper, finely chopped

about 3 pounds of mashed potatoes

4 eggs

2 tablespoons of fancy mustard (deli or dijon)

1 1/2 tablespoons of garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper or cumin

salt and pepper to taste

some oil for frying

Fighting Fish!

Finished these two beauties for Phil Migliarese at Balance Studios HQ - Fishtown They look great and definitely add some Fishtown flair.

Making A Sign

One of the first steps is cutting a fish out from a piece of wood. For this sign, we were using 3/4” solid Pine. Wood widths can vary depending on the project. If you have a specific piece of wood in mind for a sign we can usually use it.

Here are some hooks I had to customize for a particularly odd fitting.

Here’s one of the earlier whimsical fish signs in progress. This is a mockup to see what the signs would look like with the house number hanging from the bottom instead of being right on the fish.

Here’s a mockup for measurements, placements and sign sizes.

Designing & Finishing A Sign

Drawing transferred to wood board ready for cutting.

Living in Fishtown, looking around one cant help but see all the colors around. I want to have signs that stand out and say Hi!

This is the sketch for a custom Koi Sign. It will hang as to resemble a traditional Japanese Koinobori windsock. Landscapes across Japan are decorated with koinobori from April to early May, in honor of children for a good future and in the hope that they will grow up healthy and strong.

When trying to decide on which type of fish to hang outside this classic rowhome, I didn’t need to look further than their front sidewalk.

Here is a freshly cut wooden fish getting ready for a coat of paint. Look at the holes and you’ll notice the syleized bumpouts.

Now it’s beginning to look like something.

The finished product after three or four coats of polyurethane.

Here are two stylized signs. They’re both approximately 24” long and 10” high.