cadillac ranch
In 2009 I was introduced to the interactive street art in the laneways of Melbourne, Australia. Street artists get permits and do their graffiti-style artwork on the walls of narrow pedestrian passages around the city. Then, other artists come along and alter each work with their own additions.
The installation at Cadillac Ranch takes this tradition to a new level. It all started in 1974 when three guys, Tulane University art student Hudson Marquez and young architects Chip Lord and Doug Michaels from outside San Francisco drove ten Caddies into a field along Route 66 outside of Amarillo, Texas belonging to Stanley Marsh 3. They buried them nose down at a 60-degree angles, the same angle as the pyramids of Giza, equidistant from one another in a long row. Eventually, others came along and spray-painted them in day-glo colors. I’ve driven right by it multiple times when zooming along Interstate 40. But until this trip dedicated to deliberately sharing sights along the Mother Road with our grandson Campbell, I’ve never even considered stopping.
Cadillac Ranch sits in the middle of wheat fields. There is ample parking for cars along the frontage road next to the freeway. There’s a gate in the fence, and even a concession trailer that sells, in addition to refreshments, cans of spray paint so you can add to the art on the cars. All that creativity even spills out onto the fence and road passing by the property.
Our city boy Campbell was intrigued, not only with the cars, but with the wheat fields around them. He desperately wanted to pick some of the wheat. This gave us an excellent opportunity to talk about the concept of gleaning from the Bible. In Old Testament times farmers were required to leave crops unharvested along the edges of their fields for those less fortunate to gather. The most famous gleaner of the Bible is probably the refugee Ruth. Boaz saw her beauty and instructed his servants to leave plenty of wheat for Ruth to glean. Eventually he went further, and he married her.
Scripture has much to say about our responsibility to show compassion to strangers and sojourners in the land: “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:33-34). We all are strangers and sojourners until Christ makes us members of His own kingdom.
Cadillac Ranch was a stop that showed the power of celebrating everyone’s creative contribution AND the way that God wants us to treat the less fortunate around us. A double lesson, and a stop definitely worth making.
Love, Liz
