Why they first came to fascinate me I can no longer recall, but once I had blank signs on my mind I began to see them on every corner. Whenever possible I recorded these finds with my camera, and as my collection grew, I came to see it as a vaguelly scientific study of these often-overlooked manifestations of change. Each photograph is a straightforward presentation of the subject, leaving the viewer to determine whether the sign depicted is evidence of a defunct business in a dying town or an incoming business in a rapidly developing area. Is it the remnant of something gone or the sign of something new to come? All of these blank signs bear some features of both the past and the future; they are transient artifacts of the passing of our time. They are symbols of our society's progress and disintegration, and each image is a document of one of those areas in which these simultaneous processes overlap. These photographs depict the rough edges of economic progress in diverse areas from rural New York State to urban centers including New York City, Calgary, Montreal, Prague, Warsaw, Cracow, St. Petersburg and other locations.