SM3: San Jac.

Oh, San Jacinto.

Perhaps the last frontier neighborhood of Amarillo’s true Middle Class. It divides opulent wealth and struggling poverty. Sliced in two by Route 66, San Jack is one of the obscurest legs of eccentric artist Stanley Marsh 3′s largest museum. The signs are at once nonsensically placed, and perfectly sensible. Some make obvious mockeries of the viewer, homeowner or general circumstance and others, tributes to some of the lesser-known caste or historic locations (Ozymandias’ legs step to mind). Still others, jokes. Puns. Stories told in multiple parts. Ripped from Stanley’s own mind or the pages of history–the signs are paintings or a few lines of something, simply pasted on a surface larger than a yield sign and posted on some piece of now public property.

It’s easy to make up your own story with the signs. If you were to travel the old Rt. 66 and step a little off the beaten path in Amarillo  and every other community on your way into Tucumcari, and as far south as Happy you’d find the signs standing unapologetically across the landscape. On a side note: the only signs you’ll find in Lubbock are ones that have been spitefully moved there by someone other than Stanley’s workers–he apparently hates the town.

Urban legend is that Mr. Marsh’s goal was to make the longest museum in creation.  I have loved his art since I moved to the High Plains and continue to find new signs almost daily. I always feel a little more educated about my location after I find a sign. A little more curious. And a bit like Stanley and I are sharing a secret. Oh, the power of art.

I hope he succeeded in making his museum. He’s certainly got the award for keeping my attention the longest.

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