Hand Painted Signs

Shortly after assigning one of my photography classes a hand-coloring project with the theme of hand painted signs as the subject matter, I became obsessed with the notion of signage painted by the human hand. To me, there is something uniquely special about the actual brushstroke of the artist used in the creation of a sign, the paint that eventually fades or chips away, or the tiny imperfections that come only from the use of the human hand verses the typical digitally printed sign using a computer generated font. Thus began my exploration of photographing hand painted signs. I began within the city I live, Tucson, though there are a few mixed in from trips throughout Arizona and Mexico. Each image was shot with an iPhone and edited with an iPhone using the Photoshop Express App. Shooting with this type of camera, and editing in this manner, made it easy to keep up with the signs I found while out in the world on my day-to-day excursions. It helped me blend in with my surroundings and stay off the radar of my usual tripod lugging/ DSLR camera usage when photographing. The excitement of spotting a hand painted sign has yet to leave my blood. It has become almost a bit of a game. I was quite certain my children would have tired of constantly having to stop and wait while I shoot just “one more”, but they’ve actually turned into my little partners in crime, pointing out signs I may have missed while driving throughout downtown or walking around South Tucson. That is the part of the work that has made me the happiest. That they too can see the beauty in a sign painted by hand rather than the boring billboards or vinyl cutouts seen all over seemingly everything. Since beginning this series over a year ago, I’ve come to notice that some of the signs I’ve photographed have since disappeared. I knew the Southwest Bee Supply sign on South 6th Ave. would be painted over. I remember seeing a new shop moving into the space one day, and the paint going up on the building, so I made a point to photograph it as soon as I saw this happening and sure enough, it was painted over by the next week. As for the others, I’ve only witnessed their disappearance through passing by them again, and taking notice that the signs were gone. Friends tag me in photos of hand painted signs that they find, and I LOVE it! I sometimes try and search those signs out to photograph myself, but I’m just happy knowing they are looking at them just as I do, and finding signs they like to capture for their artistic beauty, as well.