The writing's on the wall

When Soar and his students whet to retrieve the sign for children’s clothing wholesaler Jean Guy Parenteau from its St. Laurent Blvd. location, they discovered its spray painted and peeling predecessor beneath it. (They were unable to keep it.) | Courtesy Matt Soar

The public’s fascination with the Montreal Signs Project has kept Matt Soar on his toes for the past few weeks. A research initiative five years in the making, interest from journalists in the project that’s rescued emblems from Montreal’s signage past reached a fever pitch in the days leading up to the exhibition’s official launch at the Communication Studies 45th anniversary gala during Concordia's homecoming weekend.

The event itself didn’t provide any respite. The communication studies professor was approached by umpteen people – perhaps one of the hundreds of alumni, perhaps yet another journalist – coming forward with heartfelt stories about the personal emotional value ingrained in the signs now adorning the CJ Building walls.

The Signs project is an endeavour that, ironically, has stemmed from one of Soar’s previous initiatives, Logocities, a critical analysis of the omnipresent advertising culture. The u-turn from criticism to praise doesn’t escape him. In fact, it’s leading him in new directions. He’s finding out, with a research subject as deep as this, the more that becomes known, the more there is to find out.

“You put the signs in the room, you put the people who remember those signs and associated places in the room, and you just have to sit back and listen,” he says.

Warshaw’s, Ben’s Deli, The Monkland Tavern, The Paramount Theatre, Monsieur Hot Dog: Each recalls an era long gone. Each means something different to someone.

“They can be a lightning rod for memories,” Soar says.

At the gala, the stories poured in from the Levy family, former owners of St. Laurent Blvd.’s Warshaw grocery store, co-owner of Monkland Tavern, Barbara Irwin, and Maître D of Ben’s Deli of 21 years Gurmukh Masand. Soar was even pulled aside by former communication studies professor Dennis Murphy to recount his fondness of Monsieur Hot Dog’s poutine, an indulgence he periodically enjoyed during his 40 years at Concordia. (The Sept. 25 event also served as an opportunity for many to say adieu to Murphy, who recently retired.) Soar and his students were able to record the stories recounted by the guests, which will be turned into a short online documentary about the project.

Since word of the project, co-researched with Archivist Emerita Nancy Marrelli, spread Soar has received a flood of tips alerting him about other signs that might be worth including in the collection: two of which he’s acted upon.

The newest, albeit yet-to-be-mounted, additions to the collection are from Jean-Guy Parenteau, a lower St. Laurent Blvd. children’s clothing wholesaler, and the New Navarino bakery sign which hung over the corner of Parc Ave. and St. Viateur for roughly 60 years.

“I see it as our business to reach out and try to save signs that are about to be destroyed or disappear onto eBay,” says Soar, a graphic designer as well as a former advertising industry employee. “Sadly, we can’t collect everything out there, we can’t pay for signs. We’re there for the ones that are going to slip through the cracks.”

Why not let them slip through the cracks? Because, Soar says matter-of-factly, we have moved into an epoch of globalized signage essentially devoid of the care and craftsmanship once common in individually created signs.

“With mass-production, the distinctiveness is completely disappearing,” Soar says, drawing a then-and-now comparison of the integrity of many manufactured items. “I don’t know if the next generation will have these same types of stories to tell. I think we’ll look back in 30 or 40 years and realize we’ve got a very homogenized landscape in terms of public lettering.

“So, we can mourn the loss or we can put our energies into preserving some of that heritage,” he says, believing it’s not just a Montreal issue, referencing TyPoCiTy, a similar project underway in Mumbai, India, where the centuries-old culture of hand-painted signs is being lost.

As to which elements of today’s culture might have a parallel value in the future, he avoids making predictions, “If I knew,” he says, “I’d start doing something about it now.”

Hear the entire Journal interview with Matt Soar: