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September 30, 2002
10,000 miles of Art: Roadside Americana

By Lynelle Ward
UHCLIDIAN STAFF
(click on thumbnails to view larger picture)

Imagine loading the car and taking a road trip across the country. You are riding on the highways through small towns and large cities, experiencing all the wonder and uniqueness of the many roadside stops encountered along the way.

Stopping at the familiar combination gas station, diner and souvenir shop to gas up and grab a bite to eat, you discover some of the most interesting places ever seen.

What goes hand in hand with the roadside stops are the roadside postcards collected along the way. The familiar collectables are sent to family and friends to prove places visited really exist.

This is what sparked Matthew Linton, assistant professor of visual arts, to create the "Roadside Americana Series."

The "Roadside Americana Series" is a blend of roadside art and postcard memorabilia. The exhibit opened Sept. 5 at the Arts Alliance Center in Clear Lake and runs through Oct. 3.

To create the artwork Linton took photographs of images he saw from the roadside and created a postcard. He then mailed the original Polaroid postcard to capture a more personal experience.


"The marks made on the Polaroid as it travels through the mail system speak to the effects of physical travel as well as the psychological marks that travels and experiences leave upon our lives," Linton said.

Linton worked to develop the idea of roadside photographs for a few years. He documented about 10,000 miles of travel across the United States with roadside Polaroids from 2000 to 2001. This idea turned into what he calls "postcard memorabilia."

Linton took the postcard memorabilia in his possession as well as others on loan from recipients and scanned or photographed the originals. The exhibit contains postcards enlarged and reprinted for display. The print is accompanied by original mailed and unmailed Polaroid postcards. To exemplify the experience, Linton uses audio or sound bytes to accompany the displayed photographs and postcards.

"Matt Linton is incredible," said Jerry Fryrear, professor of psychology at UH-Clear Lake on opening night.

"Travel, memory, memorabilia and souvenirs are ideas I find intriguing," Linton said. "To be the traveler, the tourist, the modern day nomadic wanderer is to continuously happen upon amazing and curious things."




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