I’ve added some new signs in the course of reorganizing how I present them. I’ve mostly separated Chicagoland signs from the rest of the world and I’ve reorganized most of Western Avenue Art Gallery signs into geographical pages rather than thematic. This makes it far more likely that I’ll get signs posted, since it makes them much easier to post. Check out the four new groups: Western Avenue Clark Street Pilsen Varieties
Continue readingCategory: Roadside Art
The 47th Street Art Show
47th Street is one of Chicago’s great signage thoroughfares. Here are some recent finds.
Continue readingNew Vernacular Signs
More vernacular signs from Chicago’s North Side. This great work is all part of the Western Avenue and Vicinity Art Gallery.
Continue readingAvenue Vernacular
Some great handmade signs and other sights from one of Chicago’s main ethnic strips.
Continue readingNew Weird Store Names
Just added some great names to the Grog N Groc Hall of Fame: Hotel Mr. Bed City, Paris (me) Wok N Go – “It’s only Wok N Go, but I like it,” Lexington, Ky (Karl Lawrence) The Best Way Inn Motel, Carbondale, Ilinois (rl Lawrence) Holy Sheet! Housewares, Paramatta, NSW, Australia (Aaron T. Slater) King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut (Glasgow, Scotland ) K.L. Cox Thai Me Up, San Francisco (Sandra Madrid) Crafty Beaver hardware store, Chicago (Sandra Madrid) Richard Heads bar, Houston (Sandra Madrid) Fluke Transport & Warehousing, Hamilton, Ontario, “If it arrives on time, it’s a Fluke” (Susan Galbraith)
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Vernacular Shop Signs
Read a review of David Clements’ wonderful book of hand-painted business signs from Detroit.
Continue readingAmigone Funeral Home
Someone submitted this one a long time ago to the Grog N Groc Hall of Fame. I stumbled across the sign recently in Buffalo:
Continue readingNominate A Store Name
Know any great store names? Nominate them here for the Grog N Groc Hall of Fame.
Continue readingE.T. Wickham’s sorrowful eloquence: Book Review
E.T. Wickham: A Dream Unguarded, Clarksville, Tenn., Customs House Museum & Cultural Center, 2001. Softbound, 9 x 9 inches, 108 pages, 99 color photographs, 21 B/W photographs. Foreword by Ned Crouch, essays by Michael Hall, Daniel C. Prince, Susan W. Knowles, Janelle Strandberg Aieta, Ned Crouch and Robert Cogswell, bibliography. Photographic essays by Clark Thomas and Carol Turrentine. The fate of E.T. Wickham’s historical sculpture park in north central Palmyra, Tennessee, is one of the tragedies of 20th Century folk art. Thirty years of vandalism since his death have left headless bodies where there aren’t stumps and bare plinths where
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