You've seen the signs at the Newport Folk and Jazz festivals. Meet the artist behind them.

Jazz and folk aficionados might not know Nan Parati by name, but anybody who's attended even one of Newport’s world-renowned music festivals over the past 30 years  will recognize her work.

Parati, an energetic 65-year-old artist and writer who has been hand-painting the Jazz and Folk festivals’ now-iconic stage signs for three decades, laughed as she told The Daily News, “I always say that I’m the most-collected artist in the world, and nobody knows who I am.”

Her now-iconic font, copyrighted under the name “Parati,” is a playful script she first created after falling face first into the doorway of her destiny back in 1983, when she parlayed a job as a sign writer at a local natural food store into an opportunity to paint the first signs for the New Orleans Jazz Fest.

Her distinctive lettering is now instantly recognizable, not only to attendees of that massive festival, for which she paints about 3,000 signs by hand every year, but also to music aficionados at Newport Jazz, Newport Folk and about a dozen other music festivals around the country.

“I have two fonts, actually, that I’ve copyrighted,” Parati said. “The one you’re talking about for the stages, which is the script and I just call that ‘Parati,’ and the other one I have which is more for directionals around the grounds ... I call that one ‘Fun Times Roman.’”

“I’m very proud of that name," she joked.

“But like I said,” she continued, “those are my two fonts. I made them up and I copyrighted them… All of the different signs I do, those are my two fonts and I use them for everything. I can do other fonts, but those are mine and that’s what I’m known for.

"And generally, when people want signs, that’s what they want because they want it to look like Newport Jazz Fest or whichever festival they know (my work) from.”

She mentioned her business providing signs to private individuals skyrocketed during the pandemic, with clients requesting signs reminiscent of the canceled festivals for their birthdays, weddings, and other events.

“If people just email me at nan@nanparati.com, I will write them back and I will make them a sign!” she said. She giggled as she added, “I do a lot of tattoos for people, too, which makes me laugh that people have my handwriting on their body forever.”

She said while she finds the thought funny, she also considers it an honor.

“People will contact me and ask me to write the tattoo, then I send it to them as a digital file to take to their tattoo artist," Parati said.

Nan Parati's life work started after getting fired from her job

Parati, who was born in North Carolina to civil rights activist parents whom she affectionately describes as hippies, went on a 10-day visit to New Orleans in 1980 and never came home, staying in that city for the next 25 years.

She got a job in 1983 in the produce department of a small natural foods store, but was quickly fired. She convinced the boss to switch her to the cheese department, where she also lasted no more than a month before getting sacked.

Parati, who is not afraid to have a chuckle at her own expense, started laughing as she looked back on the day that changed her life forever.

“The day I got fired from the cheese department, the sign writer was leaving, and I said, ‘I know how to make signs I promise you!’” she recalled. “Because my dad was a graphic designer and letterer, I learned how to write signs as a kid. I was always doing it — I had never done it professionally, but I knew how to do it.

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"I said, ‘I promise you, I promise you I can make signs!’ And he said, ‘This is your last chance!’ and he gave me the job as the sign writer, and that turned into the whole rest of my life.”

About two years later, some representatives from the New Orleans Jazz Fest walked into the store and asked her to paint the stage signs, and she's been doing it ever since, gradually working her way up to become the director of the festival’s entire art department.

Because legendary producer George Wein ran both the New Orleans and the Newport festivals, she was eventually asked in 1992 to start doing the signs for the Newport Folk and Jazz festivals.

Working for the festivals opened the door for other opportunities

Working for Wein led her to some other interesting experiences as well — she once went on tour with Jimmy Buffet, designing and building some of his sets along the way, and has had the opportunity over the years to sit and paint signs while mingling with the likes of Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez and many other famous musicians.

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Outside the musical world, Parati possibly maxed out her Forrest Gump-like career trajectory into the annals of American history in 1992, when Wein’s Festival Productions Company was hired by the incoming Clinton administration to design and build a festival-style set for his first inauguration.

“Both times he was inaugurated he wanted a festival on the mall in Washington, D.C., and he hired Festival Productions to build it for him,” explained Parati. “So my first serious design job on my own where there was nobody telling me what to do was designing the inauguration festival for Bill Clinton in 1992, which is really funny. I did it, and I had a great time.”

Parati hasn’t missed a summer in Newport since she was first hired in 1992, not even in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina completely destroyed her house. She happened to be in western Massachusetts at the time, visiting friends in Asheville and painting signs for the Green River Festival in Greenfield.

For the second time in her life, a temporary visit became a permanent relocation — she bought a home and eventually opened a restaurant in Asheville (which she sold in 2018), and now splits her year between Louisiana and Massachusetts.

Parati said she still feels more like a southerner than a New Englander, in part because, as some Aquidneck Island locals may be able to attest, some New Englanders have very stringent standards about who is and isn’t a local.

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That being said, she loves her adopted home of Massachusetts and she absolutely adores Newport.

“I love Newport so much — I love the history of it, I love wandering around, I love Fort Adams, I love the feeling of it,” she said, in the course of revealing she is nearly done writing a memoir about her experience moving up north. “Whenever I’m there, I just always feel so free and happy. Even though the festival is a lot to do and I’m very busy, I just love the feeling of being in Newport. It’s beautiful and I love everything about it — every single thing.”

Nan Parati's work helps others

Parati loves Newport and its festivals so much, in fact, she doesn’t take a cut when the Newport Festivals Foundation auctions off her signs.

For the past two years, the foundation has been asking musicians to autograph Parati’s signs when they finish their acts, then auctioning the signs off with all of the proceeds going to the foundation.

Last year, the signs brought in nearly $30,000, and this year, with Joni Mitchell’s sign alone going for over $27,000, the auction raised nearly $50,000.

“This year Joni (Mitchell) signed hers, and so did Paul Simon — I wish I had that Paul Simon sign!” said Parati. “I wish I made two! I love Joni Mitchell, but I would love the Paul Simon sign. I’m very happy that the money is going to the foundation because they do great things.”

“I get paid to work the festival, so I’m happy I’m making money off that, and I’m so happy this money goes to the foundation and does such great things in the world,” she continued. “I have a great relationship with the festival, I love everybody who works there, and I love what the foundation does so I’m very happy with all of that.”

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Nan Parati creates Newport Folk, Jazz festivals iconic signs, fonts