Signs of the Recent Past

Over the past few years, I’ve been working on a personal project documenting old neon signs throughout Utah and surrounding states. To me, these signs are more than just a colorful reminder of our past. They show who we were and who we are becoming now. These signs are an artistic representation of business that were an important part of their local community. Vibrant and colorful, they showed off a business’s individuality. Unfortunately today, these signs are rapidly being removed from the landscape and replaced with generic, cost efficient and mass-produced signs representing chain stores without much of a link to the community in which they reside.



Throughout America (and the rest of the world), our past is being replaced with generic versions of everything. Entire neighborhoods are built where every house looks exactly the same. Urban sprawl has brought strip malls into almost every community making it possible to drive for hours and feel like you haven’t moved. You see the same stores and restaurants everywhere you go. Wal-Mart, Blockbuster and McDonalds are quickly replacing our local businesses such as Saccos, The Gem Theater and Finns.



Some might say that the lower price and greater selection is worth the tradeoff, but is it really? You might pay less at mega-chain now, but as more and more research is showing, the cheep pre-processed foods and goods are harmful to our bodies and the environment. Cheaper in the beginning but higher insurance and medical costs quickly make up the difference. Blockbuster is easy and convenient, but we stay locked away in our homes rather than meeting our neighbors at the local theater. You can eat in your car while on the run, but what happened to sitting at the table with your family while eating a healthy dinner?

In the two years I’ve worked on this project at least 3 of the signs I’ve documented no longer exist, fallen victim to our generic forward progress. One of my favorites, the Kuong Jou Cafe just 1 mile from my house recently fell to a mediocre fresh-mex chain. To their credit though, they did re-use some of the framework to create a generic take on the original.



To all my friends and family in the Utah area reading this, I’d like to ask that if you see a sign like these and the others in the gallery on my website http://www.pullphotography.com
please tell me about it and give directions to get there.