Censored, waiting, lost, displaced, discarded, faded, forgotten, respected

Within a short walk, I begin to notice the signs that aren't there. I'm surprised by the number I see, when I begin to look. They each pose questions and, for each one, I can make a different story.

What was here? Did any hand take away the sign? When and why did they erase the words? Can these blank spaces tell me how people and places change through time? What can they tell me about memory, or intention, or present necessity?

These strange blanks in our language landscape also ask this fundamental question, What is a sign? More than the image or language, but the material on which it is composed, the border that surrounds it, the means by which it is fixed and made durable.

Perhaps I'm looking at the unconscious of my streets: how the people who live here keep knowledge in our heads. Between us, collectively, we know what was here, we know what may be, and we know what should be left, unsigned.