Dave Quinn aspired as a youth to fly jets for the U.S. Marine Corps, but decided instead during his four-year stint in the service that he wanted to focus on artistic endeavors—something he'd displayed a knack for since childhood.

Now a 30-year veteran of the commercial sign and dcor industry, he and his wife, Debbie, own Walls That Talk! Inc., a Spokane Valley business that creates custom signs, including unique 3-D pieces, and also does murals and custom faux finishes, mostly for commercial clients.

"I just love it," Quinn says. "Every project is unique. That's what keeps me so interested."

The couple operate the 3 1/2-year-old business out of their home, where Quinn converted the garage into a shop, but he says he hopes to develop a separate shop building on their property that will free up the garage and give him room to expand.

The business's modest accommodations contrast with the ubiquitousness of Quinn's handiwork, which can be seen in and on buildings throughout the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area and arguably is difficult for consumers and motorists to miss.

Examples range from smaller displays, such as architectural lettering, logos, and sculptures used in professional office and retail store settings, to huge painted murals, such as one he did with a skiing motif that stretches 12 feet by 160 feet along an outside wall of a Yoke's Foods store in Kellogg, Idaho, facing Interstate 90.

In the Spokane area, he also has created dimensional and specialty storefront signs for a host of businesses, such as Allied Fire & Security, Spokane Art Supply, Mark's Guitar Shop, Auto Rent A Center, Scafco Grain Systems Co., Precision Countertops, and Tracy Jewelers.

The Empire Office Machines Inc. building, at 1411 N. Monroe, perhaps more than many of Quinn's projects, displays the breadth of his talents. It includes a 10-foot by 30-foot painted trolley car mural along Monroe depicting an early Spokane scene, and several lushly colored, 3-D-looking environmental murals. One large mural—in an enclosed courtyard that connects the Empire Office building with owners Bob and Michelle Tweedy's adjacent home—shows a picturesque European-style vineyard with rolling hills. Another depicts a rushing river with a stone bridge in the background, and a third depicts a country path that disappears into a wooded hillside.

One of Quinn's most unique projects from a truly 3-D perspective, though, involves the Children's Dental Village, at 420 N. Evergreen, which features an underwater aquatic theme. Some of his most eye-catching artistic touches there include a pair of carved, but realistic-looking dolphin heads protruding down from the dental front office's ceiling, and the "submerged" parts of a carved life-size snorkeler, also on the ceiling, who appears to be floating on the surface while taking pictures of the sea creatures below.

On walls in other areas of the dental practice, owned by Dr. Jay Enzler, the head and tail of another dolphin, most of a moray eel, and an entire manta ray extend from painted underwater scenery. Also, one large dental-procedure room—painted a deep ocean blue—includes dimensional features designed to create the impression of being set in the midst of a coral reef.

Quinn says he is booked up with additional projects that will keep him busy through this spring, and one of those will involve creating a jungle theme, complete with dimensional animal figures, at a pediatric dental practice that's planned for the North Side.

"The dimensional stuff has just been kind of hit and miss throughout my career," he says, but he adds that he enjoys it because it gives him a chance to work with different materials and to broaden his skills. He says he typically carves such pieces from high-density foam—essentially insulation board—or an even stouter high-density urethane material called Precision Board that's designed for use in signs, then paints or finishes them as needed depending on the project.

Because the work he does varies so much from one job to the next, he prices prospective projects on a total-cost basis, rather than charging an hourly rate, and says project fees typically range from around $500 at the low end to well into the thousands of dollars for projects that take days or weeks.

He does some residential work, but really is geared toward commercial clients and "about 70 percent of our business is sign work," he says. He adds that every project starts with artwork, hand-drawn or computer-drawn, so customers know exactly what they're getting before it's completed.

Quinn says the business has been profitable virtually since he opened it in September 2005, because of loyal clientele and good word of mouth he had developed through prior, related endeavors and "side jobs." He declines to disclose its revenues, but says they've been growing at an average of about 10 percent a year.

"Debbie does all of the books and all of the marketing. She's a very good networker," he says.

Quinn finished work on an industrial engineering degree from Eastern Washington University after completing his military service, and says, "My whole plan was to use it as a backup for employment if I failed in (starting his own) business.

"I always knew in the back of my mind that I wanted to start my own business," he says.

He started out hand painting 14-by-48-foot billboards here for Donrey Outdoor Advertising. Then, in 1983, he and a partner started a company here called Graphic Design of Spokane Inc. through which they did the same type of billboard work and also got into other types of commercial sign work, such as large painted wall graphics and display signs inside grocery stores.

His partner moved to Seattle three years later, though, leaving Quinn as sole owner of the business. Increasing computerization caused the billboard niche to fade and also led to less mural work and fewer trick finishes being done by hand, so Graphic Design began to incorporate computers into more of the work it was doing as well, Quinn says.

There still were plenty of projects that had to be done by hand, however, such as applying marble or burl wood faux finishes on foam letters and sign backgrounds, or sandblasting and hand carving wood signs, he says.

Graphic Design also got heavily into the commercial awning business for a time, but the company had a few setbacks, and Quinn says he became disenchanted because, "I had just moved so far away from what I totally loved doing."

Quinn sold the operation in 2000, then worked for Berg Cos. here for a year selling commercial awnings and trying to help the company get a sign operation going, but said he didn't fit in well there and adds, "It was kind of like trying to put a square peg in a round hole."

He then joined A-1 Illuminated Sign Co., in Spokane Valley. "I was there for three years doing sales and design work. I got a really good education there in the illuminated-sign industry," including in aspects related to sign codes and regulatory permitting, he says.

Quinn says he still has good business relationships with both of those companies, but adds, "I always had an itch to get back into what I was born to do," which led him to start the business that he and his wife now own.

They say the business hasn't been hit hard yet by the economic recession, and they're hopeful that they'll be able to weather the downturn without a big drop-off in orders.

"People are always going to be opening new businesses," or trying to find ways to set themselves apart from competitors, which might bolster demand for specialty sign and dcor services even through tough times, Debbie Navin-Quinn says.

Walls That Talk! recently was honored by the Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce as its Small Business of the Year for 2008 and also has been nominated for a Greater Spokane Incorporated AGORA Award for business excellence.