Cadillac Ranch

Cadillac Ranch, a set on Flickr.

The Cadillac ranch just outside Amarillo, Texas, is beautiful, fun and like any great artwork gave the old grey matter a good kick. There are some great articles on the web about the history of the art work (see bellow) so I will keep my rambles brief and let the images do the talking.

It was the response of the other visitors to the artwork that I found most interesting as Aimee put it "people who have never held a spray can before letting out their inner Banksy ". Graffiti of the Cadillacs is quietly encouraged and there was a large supply of half empty cans around that most people were using to leave their own personal mark. Watching people cover themselves in paint and the small boy getting told off for trying to copy what his dad was doing was very funny. We didn't add anything ourselves (mainly because we didn't want to stink of paint fumes for the next 4 hours in the car). I was left thinking about the things that we leave behind in all forms after we visit a place. At the Cadillac ranch people leave behind empty discarded paint cans littering the site. The paint cans might be an hours work for someone to clean up each day but to me it was just a reflection on how we treat a lot of monuments some of which are less easy to clean up. On a more positive note we saw people leaving behind their inhibitions and a small piece of an ever changing artwork; here everyone is coming together to make something.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2220
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Ranch
http://www.texastwisted.com/attr/cadillacranch/