When people talk about ghost signs they usually mean wall signs advertising a brand or business that may or may not still be around but was once promoted in a grand, or at least large-scale, manner. There is another class of ghost signs, however, that is spookier. These are the vacant frames of (usually) unknown businesses emptied of their most critical content. They are still standing only because no one has taken the trouble to pull them down. These mostly mute signs have a charm of their own, intriguing in their very blankness.
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New Crop of DIY Carvings at Promontory Point
Here is the new crop of artwork from the June 2026 carving workshop at Promontory Point, sponsored by the Promontory Point Conservancy. Every year since 2022 artists Roman Villareal and Joel Cardenas have helped the regular folks who just show up add their own carvings to the thousands that line Chicago’s Lake Michigan shoreline. Without intending to, they all become co-creators of the collective work of art that stretches along that shore for 22 miles. And this June group added 40 new carvings to the 120 made at previous workshops. You can read more about the Chicago lakefront rock carvings
Continue readingRoadside LA Highlights
Visually, LA is a great place to visit. Here are some highlights from the Society for Commercial Archeology’s recent LA road trip.
Continue readingNewly Visible at La Rabida
The strip of land that runs along Lake Michigan from the entrance to Jackson Harbor at 64th Street, behind La Rabida Hospital, then down to 67th Street is home to more than 1,000 rock carvings. Those carvings, some dating to the 1930s, are on limestone blocks that once formed a revetment protecting park and beach from the lake. The beach is gone as is most of the revetment’s structural integrity. Where it isn’t a jumbled pile of large blocks, it’s a line of rocks now mostly under water. Lower lake levels in 2025 and 2026 brought many carvings out of
Continue readingThe Barcelona Rock Carvings
Chicago’s lakefront rock carvings are unique in the world for their quantity and their extent along a modern shoreline. But the impulse to carve on rock is not unusual, from prehistoric to Roman times to now. The modern example closest to the Chicago carvings is on the Mediterranean shore in Barcelona, Spain. Two decades ago, Sebastian Bugallo, an Argentine artist then managing a restaurant in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, decided the best way to recover from the night before was to go to the seaside at Barceloneta and carve rocks. His medium was mostly granite, specifically the large boulders piled topsy-turvy
Continue readingThe Art of Street Food – Update
The era of Washington, D.C., hot dog wagons featuring hand-painted signs is nearly over. These colorful trucks and trailers once lined the National Mall, which stretches from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol and is home to most of the Smithsonian museums. But these days there are fewer trucks, and photographic imagery has replaced the old painted signage. In other words, like most art environments, this one is disappearing. There are a few remnants, however, as seen in 2026 images below. And you can see this portable, spontaneous art environment in its glory days here.
Continue readingOutsider Art Fair 2026
Some highlights from the 2026 edition of New York’s Outsider Art Fair. Pardon the not-so-great photography, please.
Continue readingMargaret’s Grocery
If you took the cutoff from Highway 61 into Vicksburg, Mississippi, and had need of 1. sundries 2. spiritual uplift or 3. a powerful folk-art environment, you could stop at Margaret’s Grocery. The Rev. H.D. Dennis, who encased the country store inside and out with his sculpture and fantastic architecture, would preach you a personal sermon while his wife Margaret stood ready to meet your earthly needs. These pictures are from 1995. The site decayed after the couple’s passing, but rehab is happening under the auspices of the Mississippi Folk Art Foundation and its director, Suzi Altman. You can learn
Continue readingVollis Simpson Whirligig Garden
After Vollis Simpson died in 2013, his massive back-country whirligig garden in Lucama, North Carolina, was relocated to the center of nearby Wilson. Simpson ran a machine shop, did heavy equipment repair and was involved in moving houses. In retirement, he started tinkering with odd parts he had lying around. And he started making whirligigs. Big ones. His original whirligig park was the world’s most spectacular concentration of these wind machines. They still impress in their Wilson location, perhaps even more at night. Check out these videos. Scroll down for two photo galleries. Here are still photos of the whirligigs in
Continue readingQ.J. Stephenson’s Earth Museum/Occoneechee Trapper’s Lodge
Q.J. Stephenson’s Earth Museum/Occoneechee Trapper’s Lodge in Garysburg, North Carolina, was on my list of places to visit for years. Finally made it early one morning in September 2025. It’s a sweet little spot whose story you can read at Spaces Archives.
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