The first thing that hits you about The Toilet Seat Museum is the scale.
The second thing that hits you is that ONE man– Barney Smith– made ALL of these.
Barney Smith, the creator of these pieces of art, was born “on a plumbing truck” as he recalled in interviews. He got the idea for the toilet-seat-as-canvas when he saw a plumbing supply store throwing out hundreds of them into a dumpster– he asked to take them home, and they agreed.
Barney displayed these works in a shed behind his home for most of his life– opening his ‘museum’ in 1992. As his creativity and his collection grew, he eventually made and was displaying over 1400 toilet seats that he made over 50 years of work.
On his 98th birthday, the Toilet Seat Museum was moved to a new location at the Truck Yard in The Colony, Texas (just outside of Dallas), where it resides today.
Here’s some gems of Barney’s art– he would pick a theme, and then use found materials to create an homage to that theme– with materials ranging from Pez Dispensers to pool balls to Matchbox Cars to rosaries to Zippo lighters. Part collage, part hand-lettering, part drawing, and part assemblage– these artworks were never for sale, and were never intended to be.
Sometimes, Barney was inspired by historical events like the Challenger Explosion or JFK’s assassination– sometimes it was more mundane events from his life, like using honeycomb from a beehive near a bee that stung him.
It was a bit overwhelming to take in– stretching up to the ceiling, one would almost need a pair of binoculars to do each individual seat justice. I was hoping they rotated the seats, to give each a star turn at eye-level.
America is full of offbeat individuals with inspirations that are a bit off-kilter, and living on the road has allowed me to experience a ton of them. From “The Center of the World” to “Stonehenge 2” to a Robo Cafe staffed by robots, to plenty of others– when people unleash their interests, cool stuff tends to happen. I’m so pleased that Barney created an art form, of sorts.
The Toilet Seat Museum is definitely worth a stop if you are in the Dallas area.
Posted by Sun
