West Winds Motel

I don’t remember when I began to notice that a motel sign that I pass every day on Riverside Drive had gone rogue. Instead of the usual vacancy sign, someone had posted an unapologetically personal message in plain view. At first, I thought that it was a prank and that the motel owner would revert it. But then, I realized that the motel owner was using the sign to express herself or himself to the world. (I can’t help thinking it is a woman.) That was when I decided to start photographing the sign. The messages are, at times, so cringy and cheesy that I feel embarrassed reading them. For example, “YOU CAN’T SPELL AWESOME WITHOUT ME.” Other times, they express rawness, heartache and longing. “TONIGHT I’M GOING TO DANCE FOR ALL THAT WE’VE BEEN THROUGH.” The messages chronicle someone falling in love and parting ways, feeling elated, and crushed. Every time I see the sign, I relish the stark irony of the vulnerability of the sign in contrast to the busy road, dull concrete and impersonal business signs that surround it. Truth has a way of ringing out with an undeniable clarity in a room full of lies. (thank you, Czeslaw Milosz, for pointing this out.)

But what I love most about the signs is the confidence of the voice. I imagine this human being going up and down on the rollercoaster of life who has the courage to turn that experience into a public sign. This is what we artists do every day. We take all the uncool, vulnerable, human, messy, and swoony feelings that swirl around inside and make them public. I have received immeasurable consolation from artists, writers, singers, dancers who have dared to put their insides on display. Along these lines, Robert Motherwell said once that there is very little passion here in the United States, whereas a painting is the embodiment of passion. When people buy a painting, they are not buying a commodity like a sports car, they are buying a very concentrated and physical manifestation of the artist’s passion. This fuels me to keep painting!

And this makes me ponder, if I had a sign post, what would we write on it? What am I so passionate about that I would put it on a billboard for everyone to read? And I wonder how long this motel owner is going to continue baring her guts on the sign. I’m going to keep taking pictures of it until she stops.

I Am Nature