David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

Colossal Eyeglasses & Giant Scissors: Signs & Symbols for Goods & Services

A giant set of eyeglasses affixed to the façade of an optometrist’s office!  A massive pair of scissors    hanging over the door of a hair salon!  Whether walking or driving slowly along city streets, or cruising a two lane blacktop at fifty miles per hour such symbolic, three dimensional signs always grab my attention.  In a world where cleverly lit typography and slick logos pander to our eyes, such simple sculptures quickly convey a message and linger in memory as landmarks.

A shoe shaped sign displayed by a cobbler, an actual bicycle suspended in front of a bike shop, a carpenter’s workshop with its nameplate in the form of a crosscut saw, and an orchard with a large red apple atop its sign are among those I’ve encountered in my travels.  My favorites include a multi-colored dog sculpted of sheet metal marking a pet groomer; a ginormous hand grasping a fork, spoon and knife over a diner entrance; and large ants crawling on the clapboards of an exterminator’s building.  No need to spend time squinting at a few lines of creative lettering.  I know instantly what these places are about.

The River's Pulse: Fifty-Two Haiku Weeks Along the Farmington (part 4: June)

June
bright crimson water
painted by fiery sunrise
pulses in the veins

clear sky flurries float
dusk’s mayflies with milkweed down
all life in a day

fishermen cast loops
teasing the unknown below
flies follow the current.

sharp eye to knife beak
giacometti’s heron stalks
fish swim drowsily

A couple blocks from my home, the Farmington River is the largest tributary of the Connecticut.  From Tinker's Damn, Homebound Publications, 2013,http://homeboundpublications.com/store/books/tinkers-damn/

Ghost Welcome Mats

Call them permanent or ghost welcome mats.  At one time, many small American Main Street stores and  offices displayed their name or logo at the feet of patrons as they stepped to the front door.    Sometimes  painted, but more often rendered in tile or terrazzo, they were often works of simple, but utilitarian art.

Today such welcomes as you enter a business are rare.  It’s an architectural flourish that’s gone out of style.  Many of the old ones have been covered with a veneer of concrete or other material.  The few persisting usually bear the name of a company that long ago vacated the storefront or has gone out of business.  The once beckoning salutations remain as commercial epitaphs.

Whenever visiting a traditional downtown, I look for these old front walkway greetings as if on a treasure hunt.  I admire their artistry, but more than that they immediately alert me to past presences that would otherwise be invisible.  They are a kind of “Kilroy was here” greeting from bygone years when people did most of their shopping in the city center.

Many of the names embedded in these masonry welcome mats were major retailers that once seemed a permanent part of the mercantile landscape.  But storefront businesses like shoe merchant Thom McAn and department store W.T. Grant have been gone for a generation or more, though their name still boldly greets you as you enter a shop.

I’m intrigued to see who has replaced the once grand downtown retailers that brazenly imprinted their names for the ages.  The homes of historic chain stores are now occupied by antique shops, clothing boutiques and other specialty merchants.  As you enter, you step on a welcome out of the past and into a much warmer greeting from the person now behind the counter inside.

Garrulous Gateways

Passersby take note!  Be prepared to listen.  Gateways are garrulous!

Inanimate structures marking entry into an enclosure, gateways are proxies speaking for the people who built them.  Each has a story to tell, a message to send.  So common that their tidings are little noticed, their silent speech reaches us daily regardless of whether they emblazon the entrance to a home, parking lot, industrial site, subdivision, road, town or other location.  Start looking and listening and you’ll find them chattering in your head so loudly as to block all other thoughts.