Continuing Signs on the Road
When I first received the news that Travis and I were going to have a 2 person show at I.U.P. I immediately knew that I wanted to expand on my “Signs on the Road” series for the show. I hadn’t really had a chance to chip away at the series in 2023 between client work and having to move twice in one year….On that, I have really tried to come to a place of acceptance with this situation but I imagine I will always have a twinge of bitterness when I think about the whole ordeal. This landlord absolutely put us through the wringer with the application process because he wanted “trust worthy, long-term residents” and me being a full-time freelancer was, for him, a financial risk. But, in the end, he accepted our application, we paid the brokers fee, 1st month and security deposit and he turned around and sold the building 8 months after we moved in, resulting in us having to find a new place to live since the new owner planned on raising our rent by 20% if we signed a new lease. Mind you, they had started to gut all of the other units in the building around us which led us to basically live in the middle of a construction site in our final months there. This whole process was so defeating and ultimately became a financial risk FOR US while I’m sure he got a cool million and change for the sale of the building. Don’t ever come at me with “But think about the poor landlords!” I sometimes pass by that apartment on my way to work and it has a cease work order on the front door now and hasn’t been occupied by anyone in over a year. Cool.
Anyways, By the middle of 2024 the moving/life adjustment dust had settled and I was able to get a jump on work for “It Isn’t That Serious”. The subject matter remained the same but I decided I wanted to paint more of the neon signs in stages of daylight so there was a sense of time passing as you looked through the series. Initially, this felt a little weird because I had gotten so much joy out of trying to render the glow of neon signs with paint but I found I enjoyed painting them just as much without the glow because I could focus more on the lay-out design of the signs. The vibrant glow of neon signs is always the first thing to pull people in but I think once you get to see a lot of them in daylight you get a greater appreciation for the way they are constructed before the lighting even comes into the equation.
I imagine I will keep adding to this series as the years come but I cranked out 8 this past year so I will probably take a little breather and do some more people watching, both in real life and on the internet, before I start up again. I’m sure these next 4 years are going to be a deep well of inspiration, in a really discouraging sort of way.
“It Isn’t That Serious” is currently up at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the Kipp Gallery at Sprowls Hall. The show runs from January 21st - March 5th, 2025.