BROOKFIELD, Penn. – Painter Joyce Boso has been an artist since childhood, but lately, she’s taken a keen interest in depicting something a little unusual: gasoline stations from the 1940s, the Sharon Herald reports. “Gas stations represent a place of security,” said Boso. “It’s like an oasis. When you're out there on the lonely road at night and you're so tired of driving, and you see that light up in the sky, long before you get to the place where it is, your heart quickens. You can stop and get out, rest, get fuel, get a little exercise.”

Her tributes to the grand service stations of the past often begin with an archival photograph of stations from around her hometown area in Pennsylvania. “I was immediately taken by Joyce’s work, because of its sense of nostalgia,” said Kurt Shaw, who owns a Pittsburgh art gallery. “She has a remarkable ability to capture life in the early 20th Century in similar fashion to the way the Regionalist painters of that time did, yet her own unique vision and visual style shine through.”

For Boso, service stations were not merely gasoline stations—they were colorful images of a bygone era. She enjoys recreating those distinctive signs, like the Pegasus of Arco and the bird of prey on Richfield signs, and tall pumps on canvas.

Many times, her gasoline station paintings have family members as characters in the story she’s telling with the scene, such as her granddaughter or late husband. “I’m stuck in a time warp in the ’40s,” said Boso. “The world was different then.”