10/02/2025
The Museum Studies students and the Westminster College Archives collaborated to present 'Art, Tourism, and the Search for the 'Authentic' Small Town,' featuring the work of Jesse Howard.
Jesse Howard, known to most as 'The Sign Patiner,' is a Fulton local who displayed his artwork on his property, which he called Sorehead Hill.
While his signs were initially controversial, they are now part of art museums across the country, including the Smithsonian and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Stop by Reeves Library to see signs created by Westminster students in the style of Jesse Howard, and to learn more about this artist's legacy.
"This exhibit, developed by Museum Studies students, explores how small towns like Fulton become destinations through spectacle and artistic legacy. Jesse Howard's landscape of handmade signs wasn't designed for tourists, yet today travelers seek out places like 'Sorehead Hill' as markers of authenticity and spaces untouched by commercial gloss. Students created their own text-based works, exploring ideas often lost in our digital lives. Together, the exhibit invites viewers to see how self-taught art and rural storytelling help fulfill a traveler's deeper desire: not just to visit, but to feel a place."
