Roadside Art Online: Signs - 7
The Albany, Georgia, Gallery

Click a picture to see a larger view.

Albany, Georgia, is a great example of how hard times preserve a certain slice of our visual culture. The downtown is besotted with vacancies, helping to explain why development hasn't cleared all the marginal, or just local, little shops.Twyla's Anointed Hands is one of the better beauty parlor names around, and that's saying a lot.Ruined motels are a personal favorite. Heritage House is on the edge of downtown. Second Chance and A Woman's Glory are not far away.

Wings and Things's sign was all good, as was the creativity behind the name Expressations. The gothic applique on the church outbuilding works only a little better on the church itself.

Across from the church is the former JA Auto Service. The Hour of Prayer's hands seem somehow uninviting.

Roma Aroma Subs, between the restaurant building and the trailer in the back, is a gallery unto itself.

Besides the showy building, Maryland Fried Chicken features the gruesome concept of hen and chick getting fried together, an image fit for my favorite Flickr group, Cut Me Wicked Servant, which is devoted to animal/restaurant morbidity.