Ken’s Strip Union 76

After a hard few days of trying to change their life with a jackpot, most travelers went home with an opposite result. As one of the last stops before the desert, Ken’s 76 station became famous for offering some pain relief and little, “its gonna be ok” medicine.

The last in our series is not a motel but an iconic gas station now lost to the megastructures of LV Blvd. This bonus piece was dreamed up once the project was at its final(ish) size. We knew we were going to be in a gallery, and what more fitting piece to put as you exited?

Once the design started, David casually mentioned that it would be cool to somehow incorporate a medical red cross into the design. As I’ve said before, I’m not one to just casually mention things to. After sitting with it for a few days, I realized that I could make the cross by using a “Dash” on top of a “Line” followed by a “Dash”. This was obvious to me to be the structure of Morse Code. Given the illustration to be square meant I could make all 4 sides the same. Each side consists of 5 strips; the top and bottom being solid wavy wenge, row 2 & 4 being straight wenge with bloodwood in the pattern of …———… (SOS), and the middle row used to form the cross in bloodwood ———…——— (OSO?) while going back to the straight Wenge. This also allowed the secret message to be read across or vertically down the 3 crosses. The alternating grain patterns of the Wenge hopefully allow the unsuspecting to possibly pick up the code.