We live in a time when people are being replaced by automation. Often, computers can do jobs more quickly, less expensively and better than humans can. This isn’t true for hand-painted and gold-leafed firefighter helmet shields of the type and quality that are made by artist Bob Stella.
Stella is a self-taught painter who learned his craft by helping a painter letter a 1935 Ahrens Fox in 1988. He admits that his first shields didn’t look as good as those that he produces today. After making more than 15,000 shields, he has become the most sought-after helmet-shield painter in the country. He is known for his 23-karat gold-leaf shields but also does silver-leaf and painted shields.
Stella started painting shields in 1988 in his home studio in Weymouth, MA, where he still paints today. His studio is filled with an array of shields that are in various stages of painting, piles of shields that are waiting to be started and even more piles of orders that are waiting for blank shields to arrive. Today, he is the official painter of helmet shields for the FDNY, the Boston Fire Department and the Dallas Fire-Rescue Department.
In 2019, he hand-painted just shy of 1,000 shields for firefighters and collectors around the world. His client base includes customers that are located in 49 states. (He hasn’t painted a shield for a firefighter who is from Hawaii, but he painted a shield for the commander of the U.S.S. Tucson SSN-770 attack submarine, which is stationed at Pearl Harbor.)
Before painting shields, Stella was a news photographer and a contributor to Firehouse Magazine. To supplement his photography income, he took a job working at a local school, but it didn’t appeal to him. In 2017, when he got official word that he would be painting all of FDNY’s shields, he quit his day job that afternoon. Stella said that would be the last day he “worked,” because painting isn’t a job to him; it’s a passion. Now, most days, he puts in more hours crafting helmet shields than he ever put in at any previous job.
“I like to paint shields that are a challenge, with interesting artwork,” he said. “Those are the shields I hate to send out. I like them so much, and I know I won’t have the time to do another. I made one for the fire chief at Bath Iron Works in Maine with a battleship firing a gun. Man, I liked that one.”
It takes Stella about an hour-and-a-half to paint each shield, but that time is spread over a couple of weeks, because he paints and applies the gold leaf in stages.
“After I started making shields for the FDNY, my work load tripled,” Stella explained. “What used to take two weeks to get a shield done now takes at least 10 weeks,” he added, puffing on a cigar.
Currently, he is making 63 gold-leaf shields for FDNY.
Custom helmet shields aren’t just for firefighters. One of his favorite shields was for President George W. Bush after 9/11. The shield was given to the President on a white fire helmet, but getting it to the President was another story.
“The school I worked at wanted to do something special after September 11,” Stella said. “I suggested giving the President a fire helmet after the speech he made on top of the rubble pile at the World Trade Center. A student’s dad worked at the Pentagon, so we thought he could get it to the President. But when security at Logan Airport in Boston asked him what it was, they wouldn’t even let him take it on the plane. A Massachusetts Senator with connections at the White House finally got it to him, but it took months.”
Today, the helmet and shield are on display at the George W. Bush Library.
After President Bush was presented with the shield, his father, President George H. W. Bush, requested a shield from Stella. That’s not unusual, because Stella gets many requests. Unsurprisingly, he can’t fulfill every one. For example, he was asked to make a shield in just three days for John Travolta for his movie, “Ladder 49.”
“I would have loved to have one in the movie, but it was impossible to paint one that fast and get it delivered,” he said.
Stella concluded, “Old gold-leafed shields sell for big money at auctions.” He smiled. “I would love to see what mine will sell for in 100 years!”
To see more of Stella’s artwork, visit his Instagram account @helmetshields.
