On a freezing January night I was driving to my studio in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. It had snowed a day before and the city was dusted ( sounds nice, but actually it was caked on, slathered on, totally encrusted ) with a layer of salt from the streets which makes everything a dull matte grey. We still use salt to de-ice in the winter. Like stubbing a toe, I saw it on the parkway. Screaming red, blue, silver, mylar balloons wrapped around a tree waving like a wacky-wavy-inflatable tube man, and votives and stuffed animals piled around the base. I pulled over, grabbed a camera and got out. It was like 0 degrees. Instantly freezing. I was so entranced. The movement of the balloons, the flickering votive candles, and the reflections from the car headlights speeding by. The notes left to the victims were simple and true. Like Hemingway kind of true, like Emily Dickinson true. 

My hands were freezing and I wanted to capture all the views possible as this would likely disappear fast; a few days at most. Back in the car, I took a few minutes to get warm before I could resume driving.  What was that? Not a grave site.  A mark of an end of life, not the life. An expression of unspent love. 

I was sitting in my car unready to drive away with these thoughts floating. So fucking vibrant. Brilliant color. So much sadness.  So impermanent.  Yelling out to passers-by.  Slowly shrinking.  Love written in fading marker. Stuffed animals caring for dying flowers.  Geezuz! I was just on my way to paint. 

Where do I go with this? I returned to this site several times over the coming weeks. I photographed it. Sketched it. I was being seduced by the beauty of its deterioration. Of course, this was not built to last and eventually it just wasn’t there any more. I drove this street most days as I had been photographing the heroin dealers on the blocks just near here. Now this spot on the street had a ghost. Why did I pull over? 

I had always been keen about my surroundings looking to frame images and frankly sometimes I stop to get a shot and sometimes I don’t. Whatever it was which made me stop to photograph this memorial must have also made me aware that I have seen these small tributes for years and never stopped to look closely. No one really does. I mean come on, I’m going somewhere. I don’t have time for that. 

Since then, I’ve stopped often to examine and photograph the memorials on roadsides, trails, backroads and superhighways. The memorials can be elaborate or simple, colorful or pure white, religious or raucous. There are no rules, though the locations often dictate what is possible for a memorial. There is a memorial to a construction worker made from the victims work safety coat and a shovel. This striking tribute is on the guardrail of Interstate highway 65 in Indiana; a six lane highway with a speed limit of 75mph and a very narrow shoulder. An incredibly scary place for photographing or to be in general, however, this particular memorial is regularly refreshed by somebody with a new neon green jacket. From the pile of beer bottles left after the common street ritual of “pouring one out” to perfectly assembled floral arrangements, to scraps of cardboard with misspelled love offerings, these memorials were, for a brief moment, places of communion with a life which has evaporated. 

Stopping and seeing holds great reward. You’ll still get where you’re going.