Cadillac Ranch Afternoon III

This is a highly textured look at the 'day-glo paint splooge' on the stripped down cars at Cadillac Ranch along Route 66 near Amarillo TX. Cadillac... more

by Joan Carroll

Title

Cadillac Ranch Afternoon III

Artist

Joan Carroll

Medium

Photograph - Photography And Digital Art

Description

This is a highly textured look at the 'day-glo paint splooge' on the stripped down cars at Cadillac Ranch along Route 66 near Amarillo TX. Cadillac Ranch was invented and built by a group of art-hippies imported from San Francisco. They called themselves The Ant Farm, and their silent partner was Amarillo billionaire Stanley Marsh 3. He 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 3'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. 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 3 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" let alone Cadillacs! But still the people visit and contribute to the memorial! At this point, it’s possible the cars are being held together by the layers of paint!

FEATURED PHOTO, ABC Group I IS FOR INTENSE theme, 10/7/21

FEATURED PHOTO, Contemporary group, 9/4/18

FEATURED PHOTO, Starving Artist Photographers group, 11/28/17

FEATURED PHOTO, The Road to Self Promotion group, 9/19/17

joan carroll, cadillacs, spray paint, day glow, tagging, grafitti, strange, route, roadside, retro, texas, wreck, landmark, attraction, art, automobile, automobiles, buried, car, cars, funky, colorful, pop art

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September 18th, 2017