Iowa Pinstriping Hits Las Vegas SEMA Show
Muscatine artists hits big time with Las Vegas show
Written by Mike Ferguson at Quad City Times
Published October 03, 2010 5:30PM
Jim “Hetz” Hetzler has been pinstriping and airbrushing for about 40 years.
MUSCATINE, Iowa – Muscatine artist Jim “Hetz” Hetzler has pinstriped and airbrushed his way to the big time, one skate deck and one customized car at a time.
In November, Hetzler, 52, will be one of eight artists selected by House of Kolor Paint as a showcase artist for the Speciality Equipment Market Association trade show at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Hetzler will show some of his work, lead demonstrations on how he pinstripes – and will even sign up to 3,000 autographs on trading cards prepared for each of the eight artists, who hail from as far away as Germany and Iceland.
“In the custom paint and graphics automotive world, this is equivalent to being invited to the Oscars,” said his wife, Chris, 50, who co-owns JC Hetz Studio with her husband of 10 years. She runs a sign business while he focuses more on his art.
Hetzler said he got his start pinstriping cars at age 10 or 12, the age many boys begin putting together – and then painting – model cars. Entering an early model car in a contest, Hetz was disqualified because the judges didn’t believe a young lad could paint such fine lines so well.
Undeterred, Hetz tried again a couple years later. His model of a stock car on a trailer being dragged by a truck was even more detailed, but the judges had to award him first prize. He had fashioned the trailer himself and dented the stock car to make it look raced in.
If it’s partially homemade, the judges reasoned, it must be hand-painted.
He’s been asked to pinstripe all kinds of surfaces, but none stranger than the peg leg of a man he met at Sturgis, S.D., some years ago.
The man, who’d “beat cancer six times,” Hetz said, had an artificial limb shaped like a bone.
“He called it his last leg,” Hetz said, “so I did as he asked. It took about 15 minutes.”
One day, Hetz met the founder of House of Kolor Paint, Jon Kosmoski. Kosmoski wanted Hetz to tweak the logo on his paint products. Since the label had been around more than 50 years, Hetz hesitated, but took on the job anyway.
Now he receives regular shipments from House of Kolor Paint and other companies hoping he’ll try the products and write about them. His how-to articles have been published in three recent editions of Airbrush Action magazine.
