A Case of Art Gone Astray?

By burying 10 big-finned Cadillacs nose down near old Route 66 at the precise angle of Egypt’s Great Pyramid, iconoclastic oil-and-gas heir Stanley Marsh 3 put this drab Panhandle town on the map of Americana.

Cadillac Ranch--memorialized in a Bruce Springsteen song, saluted in Charles Kuralt’s “On the Road” and imitated by Los Angeles’ Hard Rock Cafe--has become, in two decades, one of the most recognizable pop-art images of the 20th century. It is a symbol of highway wanderlust and post-industrial decadence, a Stonehenge for the consumer age.

But Marsh’s latest creative endeavor has brought more scandal than praise, exposing the uneasy relationship between his merry-prankster vision of art and the rock-ribbed, Bible Belt community that serves as his canvas.

In a civil lawsuit, which led to a criminal indictment last month, Marsh is accused of deploying a series of mock road signs to bait adolescent boys into abusive and humiliating confrontations. Known as the Dynamite Museum, the yellow, diamond-shaped markers bear enigmatic messages--”You Will Never Be The Same,” “I Love the Touch Of Silken Flesh” and, notably, “Steal This Sign”--which have made them cult items among the city’s teenage crowd.

The felony charges, which include kidnapping and assault, stem from a 1994 clash with Ben Whittenburg, then an 18-year-old Amarillo High senior whom Marsh allegedly locked in a chicken coop after catching him with a stolen sign. According to Amarillo police, a separate investigation has been launched into allegations that Marsh used his Dynamite Museum to entice several other youths into sexual encounters.

“He uses his signs as an attractive nuisance to lure--and then compromise and threaten--teenage boys into doing his bidding,” Whittenburg’s lawsuit contends.

Marsh, who denies the charges, declined to be interviewed for this story. But supporters of the ruddy-faced, white-haired, 57-year-old millionaire insist that he is the innocent victim of a mean-spirited, financially motivated ploy.

“This is about getting Stanley’s money,” said Bill O’Brien, a prominent Amarillo rancher who is among Marsh’s closest friends.

The Stanley Marsh he knows is, indeed, provocative and eccentric, even outrageous at times, but only for the purpose of tweaking Amarillo from its provincial slumber, O’Brien said. Far from malicious, he sees him as a misunderstood prophet, an impulsively creative soul whose penchant for the serendipitous naturally upsets the order of a stolid West Texas town.

“Stanley’s forever tearing down the sacred, and people are forever saying: ‘What does it mean?’ ” O’Brien said. “He’s not trying to hurt anybody; he’s trying to keep the community from getting so isolated, from becoming all of one mind, from losing the essential strengths of our country, which are diversity and independent thought.”

Two Faces of Amarillo

The culprit, as Marsh’s supporters see it, is not the artist but his foremost accuser, George Whittenburg, a devoutly conservative lawyer who is representing his own son, as well as several other alleged victims, in the case against Marsh. In many ways, as scions of some of the oldest and most powerful Panhandle families, Whittenburg and Marsh are the two faces of Amarillo: One as strait-laced and earnest as the other is free-wheeling and irreverent.

Although Marsh’s attorneys say that contrast is responsible for a long-running family squabble, Whittenburg adamantly rejects any notion of a feud--a term, he contends, that’s being used to undermine the seriousness of the charges. Instead, Whittenburg describes his role as one of aggrieved father and conscientious attorney, a concerned citizen who happens to have the resources to take a stand against Amarillo’s biggest celebrity.

“I don’t think anyone has ever told him, ‘No, Stanley, you can’t do this,’ ” said Whittenburg, 51, who has pledged to donate any winnings above legal expenses to his family’s church. “It’s time for somebody to put the bell on the cat.”

At question is Marsh’s Dynamite Museum, once described as the “World’s Only Drive-By Art Gallery.” It reflects his philosophy that the best art is not found in gilded frames--surrounded by security guards, surveillance cameras and inflated price tags--but in frivolous, eye-opening twists on one’s own environment. “A system of unanticipated rewards,” as Marsh has often put it.

To that end, he and his crew of self-described “art rebels” have spent the last couple of years plastering Amarillo with hundreds of ersatz road signs, many with black letters stenciled on yellow background, most indistinguishable from the genuine article. In some cases, he has received permission to install the markers, but he also claims “squatters’ rights,” posting them wherever it strikes his fancy.

“Who’d have thought of it but Stanley,” said a bemused Tom Patterson, Amarillo’s cigar-chewing Chamber of Commerce president.

He pointed from his downtown office window to a nearby vacant lot, where a sign bearing the visage of Mona Lisa and the caption “Men Have Loved You” sprouts from the ground.

“Now what the hell does that mean?” he asked, not really expecting an answer. “I suppose it adds a little spice around here.”

A lot of spice, to be truthful, for an otherwise flat, surprisingly homogenized city of 160,000, where the economy revolves around cattle, helium extraction and a U.S. Department of Energy nuclear armament plant. Soon, Marsh’s signs were being pilfered almost as fast as he could put them up.

Motivation Questioned

The extent to which he may have encouraged this practice remains a question of debate: Teenagers, such as Ben Whittenburg, insist that Marsh let it be known he viewed the thefts as approbation of his work’s artistic value; Marsh’s friends argue that he tried to thwart thieves by anchoring the signs with rebar and concrete, although he recognized that they would still be an evolving exhibit, subject to the vicissitudes of an unpredictable world.

Either way, dozens got snatched. After the first signs began dotting Amarillo in 1993, some kids even cataloged them--jotting down locations and taking pictures--before yanking their favorites from the ground.

“Most Amarillo locals don’t understand how artistically sophisticated Stanley is,” said Phillip Periman, a local physician and amateur photographer who considers himself a friend of both the Marsh and Whittenburg clans. “I think he expected his signs to get stolen, but that doesn’t mean he wanted them stolen. He believes that great art is like the Sphinx or Statue of Liberty--not gallery art, or what he calls ‘flat’ art--but something that can’t be sold or owned.”

Rather than call the police, however, Marsh apparently scouted out the culprits himself, even employing a private detective to lead him to their homes, according to several youths who say they were contacted by his investigator. Although Marsh may have believed the problem could be resolved without blowing it up into a criminal matter, his critics describe such tactics in less than benevolent terms.

In an incident in February, according to the Whittenburg lawsuit, Marsh stormed a weekend slumber party, spewing expletives and boasting of how he wielded a hammer to lock--and then photograph--Whittenburg’s son inside a chicken coop. During another menacing house call, which Whittenburg said he will detail in a future lawsuit, Marsh allegedly snapped photos while a gang of henchmen--faces concealed under Lone Ranger masks--stood behind him with folded arms.

“He uses this as an excuse to come out to people’s property and terrorize their kids,” said Bill Patke, a burly self-employed carpenter who acknowledged that his estranged 18-year-old son had been involved in theft of some signs. “I’m not proud of that fact, but it doesn’t give this man a right to scare the hell out of my family.”

In Patke’s case, as well as two others outlined in the Whittenburg lawsuit, Marsh purportedly threatened the scofflaws with prosecution unless they spent a day on his Dynamite Museum crew. It is during these work sessions that the teenagers say alleged sexual incidents took place, some at Marsh’s 12th-floor office in Amarillo’s tallest building, others at his sprawling, pine-shrouded ranch that bears the moniker Toad Hall.

“I want to say, ‘That’s not Stanley, that could never have happened,’ but I don’t know,” said Don Powell, president of Boatmen’s First, Amarillo’s venerable bank, which has strong ties to both the Marsh and Whittenburg families. “We like the publicity he brings to the area, but he also tends to push these events to the very edge, sometimes being offensive without even knowing it.”

According to the lawsuit, Marsh summoned a group of teenage boys to his office in May, demanding that they fill out job applications--or else be exposed as thieves on Channel 7, his top-rated Amarillo TV station. During the visit, the court documents allege, an unidentified member of Marsh’s staff reportedly told one of the youths: “He’ll probably make you swim nude in front of all of us, and then work for a day, and then everything will be forgotten.”

Focus of Probe

Amarillo Police Sgt. Randy TenBrink acknowledged that Marsh is the target of a criminal investigation into “things of a sexual nature with minor kids,” but declined to elaborate. He added that the district attorney’s office has received his initial report on the case.

In separate interviews, two of the alleged teenage victims said the district attorney had already called them to testify before an Amarillo grand jury--a fact confirmed by Whittenburg, who lent them legal advice and moral support at the courthouse.

One of them, who was 15 at the time, said he was ordered to go skinny-dipping with Marsh, who allegedly threatened to press felony theft charges unless he consented. The other youth, who had voluntarily sought employment on the Dynamite Museum sign crew, brought his allegations to the attention of authorities, claiming Marsh repeatedly fondled him last summer, sometimes while displaying X-rated materials.

“I was too ashamed to do anything about it,” said the youth, now 16, whose parents asked that he not be identified because of his age. He said he came forward after Marsh allegedly sent him to school with orders to distribute photos of Whittenburg’s encaged son; feeling guilty, he said he went to Whittenburg’s office to apologize, but ended up revealing his entire story.

Lawyers for Marsh, who is the father of five children and husband of a former Amarillo College regent, take umbrage at the accusations. They note that each story is linked by a common thread, one that can be traced back to Whittenburg’s law firm. They also point out that the grand jury, which indicted Marsh on the episode with Whittenburg’s son, has taken no action on any of the allegations involving sexual abuse.

“Mr. Whittenburg would like very much to get Mr. Marsh, and he’s trying to do it any way he can,” said Jerome W. Johnson, who is representing Marsh in the civil case. Marsh remains free on a $3,000 bond while the criminal charges are pending.

It is true that most of the alleged victims came forward only after learning of the Whittenburg lawsuit in September, and that he has urged them to tell their stories--even helping schedule some of the interviews that are reported in this article. But Whittenburg says it is offensive to imply that he has somehow orchestrated all of their testimony, a notion that police also dismiss. “To suggest that the investigation flows from his office is totally erroneous,” TenBrink said.

As for the grand jury, it was to have disbanded on Dec. 31, but extended itself--without explanation--for an additional 90 days.

“If I think something is wrong, seriously wrong, I’m not afraid to jump in and do something about it,” Whittenburg said. “I’ve done it before and that’s what I believe I’m doing right now.”

Issue of Honesty?

If there is any bad blood between these two families, at least on Marsh’s part, it has something to do with that kind of rectitude.

As Marsh’s friends are fond of pointing out, the Whittenburgs were widely thought to be the model for an unflattering 1958 novel called “The Bone Pickers,” which depicted a stuffy, self-important, oil-rich Amarillo clan. Today, as a frequent volunteer on the Texas state bar’s disciplinary team, George Whittenburg is renowned, if not beloved, for pursuing legal malpractice claims against members of his own profession.

It is just those sorts of airs that Marsh--whose grandfather helped pioneer Amarillo’s petroleum industry--most delights in needling, whether he is burying Cadillacs in a wheat field, breeding exotic animals or, as the Whittenburgs say he did last year, mailing them an empty plastic bag labeled: “Secret of the Universe.”

A mild state of anarchy, he tells an interviewer in “The Plutonium Circus,” a recent documentary about Amarillo’s bomb factory, is the best antidote to the humdrum routine of life.

“I believe the rules should apply to me if I make the rules for myself,” says Marsh, seated before his famed row of cars. “If I change my mind, then they don’t apply any longer.”