As my time painting in the boneyard was drawing to a close, I found myself becoming more intimate with the signs. When I first began, I tried to capture everything I could see on an 8" x 10" piece of paper. There was so much happening—so much life still humming within these fragmented neon relics—that I had to sit, sketch, and use a grid to contain the overwhelming beauty before me. Gradually, I learned to see beyond the surface, to engage with the signs not just as objects, but as stories written in light and time.

One of my last acts was to repaint the Barbary Coast letters. This time, with better eyes and an even more grateful heart, I saw the letters for what they truly were—not just remnants of a casino, but symbols of an era that had been, and a personal marker of the journey I had taken within this neon graveyard. Each stroke was a farewell, and a thank you, for the experience of painting there.