Toilet Seat Art Museum - Alamo Heights, TX
N 29° 28.900 W 098° 28.174
14R E 551423 N 3261469
Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art Museum was featured in a December 26, 2004 Chicago Tribune article. #2135
Waymark Code: WMT9RE
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 10/20/2016
Views: 6
From the Dec. 26, 2004 Chicago Tribune's Southwest bureau chief Howard Witt.
ALAMO HEIGHTS, Texas — Commodious it is not, but the world's only known Toilet Seat Art Museum is nevertheless an impressive sight. More than 720 decorated toilet seats line the walls and hang from the rafters of Barney Smith's garage in suburban San Antonio, a testament to one man's lifelong love affair with plumbing.
Flush with artistic inspiration, Smith, an 83-year-old retired master plumber, has created on toilet seats what a lesser artist might have merely committed to canvas, or at least velvet.
The facilities include toilet seats commemorating momentous world events (World War II; the fall of the Berlin Wall; the O.J. Simpson trial), famous personalities (Elvis Presley; Barbara Walters; Brad Pitt), each of the 50 states, most of the Canadian provinces and numerous Texas football teams. There is a toilet seat featuring $1 million in shredded U.S. currency, another with ashes from Mt. St. Helens and one mounted with a piece of insulation from the ill-fated Challenger space shuttle.
Privy to the most intimate medical details of his wife Louise's gallstone surgery, Smith even fashioned one toilet seat out of the syringes, IV bags and scalpels used in the operating room.
"I don't have the actual gallstone," Smith lamented. "She hid that from me."
Plunging into toilet seat art came naturally to Smith after a lifetime spent as a plumber. His first piece, fashioned 35 years ago, was a fortuitous accident: Smith was looking to mount some antlers from a small deer he had hunted but he didn't have any wood plaques, so he reached for an old toilet seat lid instead. (Technical note: Most of Smith's pieces are in fact made from toilet seat lids, rather than the seats themselves.)
For posterity, on its posterior, each of the toilet seats is numbered and engraved, and then photographed and catalogued. It can take Smith 20 hours to complete his more elaborate works, some of which feature blinking lights, mounted insects or dozens of dental instruments.
Plumbing the depths of human tragedy, Smith has dedicated toilet seat murals to the Sept. 11 victims, the Holocaust and the Unknown Soldier. Saddam Hussein is even represented--or at least a piece of a toilet from one of the toppled Iraqi leader's palaces, donated by a U.S. soldier who found it.
"Out of the house!" (or words to that effect) Smith said his wife exclaimed when he brought the Hussein toilet seat in to show her.
"There's nothing inappropriate about remembering the Holocaust on a toilet seat," Smith insisted, noting that many of his seats contain Bible verses and other religious icons. "I can testify to the goodness of the Lord on a toilet seat."
Ascending the throne as the world's sole Toilet Seat Artist was not difficult, especially since the only other contender for the title, a man named John Kostopoulus in Boron, Calif., died in 1996. Kostopoulus created about 400 toilet seat artworks, all of which were believed destroyed by unappreciative relatives after his demise.
American standards of high art might not recognize the toilet seat as a preferred medium for expression. But in the world of oddball folk art and attractions--including such rarities as the World's Largest Fire Hydrant, the World's Largest Cowboy Boots, the World's Largest Ball of Twine, the Cockroach Hall of Fame and the Pez Museum--Smith is already a legend.
A low flow of tourists--about a thousand a year--make the pilgrimage to his museum, which is nestled anonymously in a sleepy neighborhood of old bungalows. Many ask to buy some of the works, but he refuses to sell his art for any price.
Clogging one wall of the museum are toilet seats dedicated to each of the many radio and television appearances Smith has made over the years, including most of the network morning shows and daytime talk shows. He has been on "Montel" and "The View."
But Oprah has yet to call.
Type of publication: Newspaper
When was the article reported?: 12/26/2004
Publication: Chicago Tribune
Article Url: [Web Link]
Is Registration Required?: no
How widespread was the article reported?: national
News Category: Arts/Culture
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