This story was originally told live at the Paramount Theatre on April 3, 2024. Our next live show is on Oct. 23 at Bass Concert Hall. Get your tickets now!
Lauren Mikiten studied graphic design at Texas State University and has lived in San Marcos since 2008, so she thought she knew her city pretty well.
Then one day something caught her eye while she was on Highway 80. It was a poster board with a painting by Jasper Johns. She had seen the original painting, Three Flags, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
Lauren wondered: Who put this poster board up in San Marcos?
And why was it on the side of a Jason’s Deli?
By the dumpsters
The poster board is tacked to the building in the San Mar Plaza — not all that different from Floor 7 at the Whitney Museum.
Half of the board has a written description of Jasper Johns and his Three Flags, and the other half is a reproduction of the painting. Lauren’s graphic design background came in handy: She noticed the entire poster was hand-painted.
The display is on a wall partially covered by bushes. There would be no reason for someone to come close to it unless they’d like to visit the dead end where the trash bins are.
“If it was meant to be seen, why is it there?” Lauren said. “It doesn’t seem like public viewing was a priority.”
Cars are constantly whizzing by and there aren’t any sidewalks.
“Who sees that regularly except people taking things into the Jason’s Deli dumpster?” Lauren said.
Through the years
The paint on the poster board was cracked and faded, which meant it had been exposed to the elements and weather. But for how long?
A quick search on Google Street View showed the poster board in 2023.
Here it is in 2019.
Here it is in 2016.
The oldest image just happens to be the first image of the area available. It’s from 2008.
“That’s when I started college,” Lauren said. “Oh my gosh, it’s possible that it’s been in San Marcos longer than I have.”
Who is Jasper Johns?
Jasper Johns is an American postwar artist mainly known for his paintings of flags, particularly American flags.
“There's always this question at the heart of it: Is this meant to be ironic or is this meant to be sincere?” said Jennifer Stob, a professor at Texas State University’s School of Art and Design. “Johns was a gay man, yet he grew to prominence in an era where he wasn't necessarily in the closet, but it definitely wasn't something that he wanted spoken of.”
Johns spent much of his childhood in South Carolina before moving to the Big Apple in his late teens. He spent the next several decades in New York City, making art and making friends with other artists, particularly those who also belonged to the LGBTQ community.
Stob said people like Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol would be formative in his early career.
“They all too were gay men who I can't help but imagine found each other not only as creative equals," she said, "but also just as people who anywhere else in the United States besides this magical New York City would probably be very much outsiders."
The original Three Flags was made of three canvases painted with hot wax, merging his love of paint and sculpture.
One could argue our elusive Jason’s Deli artist went for a similar approach with this hand-painted poster board stuck to the wall.
An addiction
The employees at Jason’s Deli said they had no idea what the poster was doing there. One worker, who said he walks to work every day past the dumpsters, said he’d never noticed it before.
It was time to zoom out. Maybe our secret admirer has nothing to do with Jason's Deli, but rather the San Mar Plaza.
“It blows me away that it’s still there,” property manager, Steve Hagara, said when I gave him a call. “It’s kind of funny … sometimes I’m like, 'Does anybody notice this?'”
(Well, we know one person did!)
“I think that was the only spot that made sense to put it there at the time,” he said.
Steve put the poster board there with his boss, a guy named Bill Hutchinson, close to 20 years ago.
Hutchinson is a Dallas-based investor, who appeared on the reality TV show Marrying Millions (and pleaded guilty to a sexual assault charge in May).
“One of my passions in life is art,” he said. “I collect art and I started putting up public art … because once you get into art, it becomes addictive.”
He commissioned about 20 educational art posters and spread them all across Texas. Some have been damaged or destroyed, others simply lost or stolen.
“Or I’ve sold the properties, and in some cases, the new owners don’t love art as much as I do and they have removed them,” Bill said.
The Jasper Johns at Jason’s Deli is the last one standing.
“I can’t explain why that piece in that location,” he said.
But Bill said he hoped the freeway traffic, moving slowly, could prompt onlookers to admire the piece.
“Maybe just be curious about it, maybe come down into the shopping center and actually walk to it and see it,” he said.
Art for everyone
This art wasn’t just for drivers though; it was also for his girlfriend at the time.
“I saw her mom's paintings and they were gorgeous,” he said. “I asked her if I could pay her to do this for me. So the painter happens to be the mother of my ex-girlfriend.”
Although maybe a little hopeful, Bill’s vision of a person driving by and checking out his poster board came true. It’s exactly how Lauren found her way to it.
So thank you, Lauren, for noticing this poster board and for teaching us to appreciate art wherever it is.
