Cadillac Ranch
Amarillo, Texas
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Clear, 92°
Note - I am several days behind posting due to no internet in some of the places traveled. Where I am presently, there is no internet for miles due to a large wildfire which took down several towers. Making a post with the pictures eats up to much of my cell service (if I have it) so I am posting when I can so bear with me until I catch up.
“Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it.”
Traveling Life’s Highways looking for fun, whimsical and nonsensical things to write about I knew that one of them would be on the Old Route 66 in Amarillo, Texas. I’ve driven by it many times over the years and know that it has been used in song videos, movies and instantly recognizable. These Great Monuments, we are told, represent America's hopes and dreams, art and commerce, materialism and spiritualism, folly and fame.
Cadillac Ranch
Cadillac Ranch was invented and built by a group of art-hippies imported from San Francisco. They called themselves The Ant Farm. In 1972, the group claims to have been given a list of eccentric millionaires identifying Stanley Marsh, III of Amarillo among those who might be able to fund one of their projects. When they submitted their idea, Marsh's response began "It's going to take me awhile to get used to the idea of the Cadillac Ranch. I'll answer you by April Fool's Day. It's such an irrelevant and silly proposition that I want to give it all my time and attention so I can make a casual judgment of it."
Painted Caddy's
Stanley wanted a piece of public art that would baffle the locals, and the hippies came up with a tribute to the evolution of the Cadillac tail fin. Ten Caddies were driven into one of Stanley Marsh, III's fields, then half-buried, nose-down, in the dirt (supposedly at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza). They faced west in a line, from the 1949 Club Sedan to the 1963 Sedan de Ville, their tail fins held high for all to see on the empty Texas panhandle.
Talking over what to paint
That was in 1974. People would stop along the highway, walk out to view the cars -- then deface them or rip off pieces as souvenirs. Stanley Marsh, III and The Ant Farm were tolerant of this public deconstruction of their art -- although it doomed the tail fins -- and eventually came to encourage it.
Decades have passed. The Cadillacs have now been in the ground as art longer than they were on the road as cars. They are stripped to their battered frames, splattered in day-glo paint splooge, barely recognizable as automobiles.
Layers and layers of paint
Yet Cadillac Ranch is more popular than ever. It's become a ritual site for those who travel The Mother Road, Route 66. The smell of spray paint hits you from a hundred yards away in the Texas wind. A tour bus stopped and off came an army of people; the sound of voices chattering in French, German, and UK English makes this one of the most polyglot places between the UN and Las Vegas. Despite its exposed location in an empty field, Cadillac Ranch seems to give its art-anarchists a sense of privacy and anonymity, much like a urinal stall in a men's room where men/boys write things on the walls. Two guys were picking up the trash of discarded spray cans, lids blowing in the wind, and they gathered about 6 or 8 large contractor garbage bags full of used spray paint cans.
Individual painters take a stance facing one of the cars, (hopefully upwind) then let it fly. Surrounding visitors keep their distance, perhaps less out of courtesy than from a desire to stay clear of the spray cloud. The Europeans really seemed to enjoy attacking the cars during our visit, maybe because they've lacked a good graffiti canvas since the toppling of the Berlin Wall.
There was even a Cadillac Ranch RV Park about a mile down the Old Route 66 road for those wishing to stay and take in this unique place in Americana folk art history.
Tourists are always welcome at Cadillac Ranch. If you bring spray paint, make sure to snap some photos. Because whatever you create at Cadillac Ranch will probably only last a few hours before it's painted over by someone else.
Traveling Life's Highways to the weird and fun places.
Traveling Life’s Highways, bringing you those places and people whom you may not ordinarily see. Up next, a little further down Old Route 66, the musical highway in New Mexico.