Gallery artist Molly Block, whose work you may recognize from our November show Sign of the Times, was recently highlighted with a 10-page photo feature in the December issue of Texas Highways Magazine, the official travel magazine of Texas.
The Bright Legacy of Vintage Neon Signs Across Texas: the ongoing Roadside Relics project documents the fading presence of neon art on Texas’ highways and byways.
Whether it was visits to Snapka’s Drive Inn for hamburgers in her hometown of Corpus Christi, or midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Houston’s Alabama Theatre in the early 1980s, some of photographer Molly Block’s fondest memories have one aesthetic marker in common: vintage signs. Specifically, the kind of midcentury relics that used to adorn so many cinemas, burger joints, and motel courts throughout the state.
Today, those vestiges of a bygone era are in danger of extinction as chain businesses and commercial architecture more concerned with practicality elbow out the hand-forged neon that made any Texas road trip in the 1950s and ’60s a panoramic feast for the eyes. For posterity’s sake, Block sought to document that level of craftmanship starting in 2010 with the purchase of her first iPhone. On treks to visit family in Lockhart, Gonzales, and Hallettsville, she’d exit the highway and take backroads where there was a larger concentration of these radiant works of art. She even found an online community of like-minded “sign geeks” who travel the globe in search of the unique and patinaed.
“There’s a degree of spontaneity to the project,” she says. “But at some point, I started to go on Flickr and do research through geotags. That’s how I found places like Marlin and Palestine, which are really cute towns with a number of old signs.”
Within a few years, Block’s project became serious enough that she graduated from a smartphone and Instagram filters to a more elaborate Nikon camera, with which she’s shot hundreds of vintage signs across the American Southwest. Along with the Houston Center for Photography, her work has appeared in exhibitions as far away as the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts; the Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, California; and other galleries and venues throughout the U.S. and abroad.
Of course, with a project of this scope, life can get in the way. The pandemic, a breast cancer diagnosis in 2023, and the hereditary degenerative neuromuscular condition Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease slowed some of Block’s progress—but she refuses to stop. In the relatively short amount of time she’s been at work chronicling these throwback pieces of Americana, dozens have been altered or torn down entirely. For one, the Alabama Theatre where she spent so many nights as a teenager watching Tim Curry perform as Dr. Frank-N-Furter. As the theater transitioned into a Trader Joe’s, the sign was repainted and the neon was replaced with LED bulbs.
“It’s a subtle change, but it does alter its character,” Block says. “I like to shoot these signs during the day, so you can see the years of wear and tear. Even things like hurricane damage. It’s proof that they have really lived.”
— Chris Hughes
Molly Block, Tee Pee Motel in Wharton, 2016
Block says she’d pass this sign in Wharton on family trips to Matagorda Beach in the 1970s . For decades, she was obsessed with the 10 kitschy concrete teepees that made up this 1940s motel. When it was bought and renovated by a Texas lottery winner in 2004, Block finally had the chance to stay there as an adult.
Molly Block, Grand Prairie Dog Drive In, 2018
Fittingly, this homage to one of the only adorable rodents is located in Grand Prairie. Situated on US 180, the restaurant has lured in travelers passing between Dallas and Fort Worth with its gluttonous burgers and fried catfish since the 1950s.
Molly Block, Texas Favorite, Study 2, 2016
“I’m a fan of programmatic design, where the shape of the sign reflects the focus of the business it promotes,” Block says. There’s no better example than this Houston doughnut staple that has been in the Oak Forest neighborhood since 1963.
Check out the rest of the spread in the December issue of Texas Highways Magazine!
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Gallery artist Molly Block, whose work you may recognize from our November show Sign of the Times, was recently highlighted with a 10-page photo feature in the December issue of Texas Highways Magazine, the official travel magazine of Texas.
The Bright Legacy of Vintage Neon Signs Across Texas: the ongoing Roadside Relics project documents the fading presence of neon art on Texas’ highways and byways.
Whether it was visits to Snapka’s Drive Inn for hamburgers in her hometown of Corpus Christi, or midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Houston’s Alabama Theatre in the early 1980s, some of photographer Molly Block’s fondest memories have one aesthetic marker in common: vintage signs. Specifically, the kind of midcentury relics that used to adorn so many cinemas, burger joints, and motel courts throughout the state.
Today, those vestiges of a bygone era are in danger of extinction as chain businesses and commercial architecture more concerned with practicality elbow out the hand-forged neon that made any Texas road trip in the 1950s and ’60s a panoramic feast for the eyes. For posterity’s sake, Block sought to document that level of craftmanship starting in 2010 with the purchase of her first iPhone. On treks to visit family in Lockhart, Gonzales, and Hallettsville, she’d exit the highway and take backroads where there was a larger concentration of these radiant works of art. She even found an online community of like-minded “sign geeks” who travel the globe in search of the unique and patinaed.
“There’s a degree of spontaneity to the project,” she says. “But at some point, I started to go on Flickr and do research through geotags. That’s how I found places like Marlin and Palestine, which are really cute towns with a number of old signs.”
Within a few years, Block’s project became serious enough that she graduated from a smartphone and Instagram filters to a more elaborate Nikon camera, with which she’s shot hundreds of vintage signs across the American Southwest. Along with the Houston Center for Photography, her work has appeared in exhibitions as far away as the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts; the Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, California; and other galleries and venues throughout the U.S. and abroad.
Of course, with a project of this scope, life can get in the way. The pandemic, a breast cancer diagnosis in 2023, and the hereditary degenerative neuromuscular condition Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease slowed some of Block’s progress—but she refuses to stop. In the relatively short amount of time she’s been at work chronicling these throwback pieces of Americana, dozens have been altered or torn down entirely. For one, the Alabama Theatre where she spent so many nights as a teenager watching Tim Curry perform as Dr. Frank-N-Furter. As the theater transitioned into a Trader Joe’s, the sign was repainted and the neon was replaced with LED bulbs.
“It’s a subtle change, but it does alter its character,” Block says. “I like to shoot these signs during the day, so you can see the years of wear and tear. Even things like hurricane damage. It’s proof that they have really lived.”
— Chris Hughes
Molly Block, Tee Pee Motel in Wharton, 2016
Block says she’d pass this sign in Wharton on family trips to Matagorda Beach in the 1970s . For decades, she was obsessed with the 10 kitschy concrete teepees that made up this 1940s motel. When it was bought and renovated by a Texas lottery winner in 2004, Block finally had the chance to stay there as an adult.
Molly Block, Grand Prairie Dog Drive In, 2018
Fittingly, this homage to one of the only adorable rodents is located in Grand Prairie. Situated on US 180, the restaurant has lured in travelers passing between Dallas and Fort Worth with its gluttonous burgers and fried catfish since the 1950s.
Molly Block, Texas Favorite, Study 2, 2016
“I’m a fan of programmatic design, where the shape of the sign reflects the focus of the business it promotes,” Block says. There’s no better example than this Houston doughnut staple that has been in the Oak Forest neighborhood since 1963.
Check out the rest of the spread in the December issue of Texas Highways Magazine!
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