Here are some fake folk art signs I worked on today. About half the time, these things come out almost just like I dream for ‘em to come out, while the rest of the time, they’re sort of only barely in the neighborhood of the various mental sketches floating around my inside my messy headspace. Especially today, especially for “Motel,” I was thinking of doing something a little different, something blockier and more uneven than what I ended actually doing. Guess that shows how much my art abilities atrophied while I was away doing other work. Plus, the eye trouble’s not entirely a joke, but is also a real thing, on account of how I see everything sideways, although not always as much sideways as I’d like. Whatever, though; there’s more salvage and scrap lumber laying about to draw on and paint on and so I’ll maybe do another motel sign soon. Although, as usual, I’ve got an extra-long list of words and phrases I want to paint just as much, all inspired by vague memories of signs I’ve seen but didn’t get pictures of or couldn’t buy off whoever made ‘em, ’cause sometimes you simply can’t find that part out, since signs like these, when you run across them in whatever odd corner of the country, are almost always sort of mysterious objects left over from a long-gone world. Like, a real life folk art sign rarely ever has a provenance, except if you want to just imagine what the provenance might be, which is what I like anyway, imagining stuff.
