An audio guide to the world’s strange, incredible, and wondrous places. Co-founder Dylan Thuras and a neighborhood of Atlas Obscura reporters explore a new wonder every day, Monday through Thursday. In under 15 minutes, they’ll take you to an incredible place, and along the way, you’ll meet some fascinating people and hear their stories. Our theme and end credit music is composed by Sam Tyndall.
Beyond the Game: Take A Seat in Dallas
Visitors to the Truck Yard beer garden in The Colony, Texas (outside Dallas) are treated to a very unusual art collection: a sweeping array of around 1400 hand-painted toilet seats, many of which are also collaged with objects ranging from tortoise shells to Zippo lighters to Pez dispensers. This is the life’s work of Barney Smith, a beloved Texas outsider artist who spent decades creating these “seats” of art, inspired by his day job as a plumber. James McCandless, a reporter at the San Antonio Business Journal, once visited Barney back at the original home of the collection – which was Barney’s garage. He tells us the story.
For more information about visiting the Toilet Seat Art collection today (you can event rent it out for events): https://truckyard.com/the-colony/toilet-seat-museum/
Read James McCandless’s original story for Atlas Obscura about visiting Barney: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/toilet-seat-museum-barney-smith
If you can’t get enough of these seats, Roadside America also has done some delightful profiles of Barney over the years: https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/6166
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