Artist creates “Signs” billboard along Route 66 in western Oklahoma

Oklahoma Baptist University professor Corey Fuller recently created an art billboard titled “Signs” along Route 66 in western Oklahoma.

One can see the “Signs” billboard driving west on Route 66 between Weatherford and Clinton, between mile markers 77 and 78 on Interstate 40’s north side.

The university had more details in a news release:

The project, which began last fall, consists of 16 individual hand-painted signs, measuring two feet by four feet each, on Masonite and plywood. The panels are mounted to a billboard measuring 16 feet by 8 feet that was constructed on-site. The signs each refer to fictional places or things.
“The difference between this and an actual commercial billboard is, of course, that real billboards refer to real places and things,” Fuller said. “In this case, my billboard refers only to a fictionalized reality. However, of course, the billboard is in fact real.”
According to the “Signs” page on Fuller’s website, the work is intended to challenge the traditional understanding of a “sign.” […]
“I’ve always been interested in billboards which I think stems from traveling so much as a kid, road-tripping with the family through barren landscapes like west Texas and New Mexico,” he said. “There were no smartphones or iPads, so we just took in the world around us, the car window being my window to the world. Even as a young kid, I was always taking notice of the typefaces and color schemes of roadside signage.”

Fuller plans to eventually remove and sell the individual panels from the billboard as art pieces, then will rotate in new work there.

He said he’s influenced by Ed Ruscha, a key player in the pop art movement of the 1950s and ’60s who was reared in Oklahoma City.

Fuller encourages those passing through the area to take a picture or selfie and use the hashtag #TheSignOn66 on social media.

(Image of Corey Fuller’s “Signs” in western Oklahoma via Oklahoma Baptist University news release)