Mage, Cleric, Fighter

some doodles on new year's morning :) Happy 08 to whoever reads this <3

Glass Quilt Mosaic VW Art Car

The Glass Quilt a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle was created By Oakland artist Ron Dolce. He spent 18 years adhering the glass mosaic to the body of his Volkswagen, and each colored piece of glass is carefully hand cut and glued onto the VW body using 100% silicone adhesive. When he got a dent in the front of the car, Ron simply re-applied the mosaic over the impression. The detail of the glass does an excellent job of disguising the dent. When I met Ron at Art Car Fest 05 in Berkeley, he said that to truly experience this car you have to put your hands on it, otherwise you cant connect with it on a deaper level. Ron thank you for your dedication and commitment to your art, a true classic VW. To book this car for your next event go to Art Car Agency.

Red Stiletto Art Car by David Crow

Photo courtesy by Harrod Blank
David Crow from Seatle created this Red Stiletto using parts of a Honda motorcycle as a way to make up with his girlfriend. I met David at last years Art Car Fest 2007.

2008

Congratulations to the very creative Spanish ad company DoubleYou (link to a non-site), who have various nice projects,among them the ingenious DoupleYou Loop.

ONE LOVELY DRAWING, part 15

I can't think of a better way to end 2007 than with this lovely drawing by our old friend Rembrandt.

This little drawing makes me wonder why Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell thought it was necessary to invent abstract expressionism.  

What an astonishing drawing and what a wonderful world we live in!

Happy new year to all of you!

Camera Van By Harrod Blank

Photo courtesy by Harrod Blank

Harrod Blank created the world famous Camera Van, a 1972 Dodge van that is fitted with 2,500 cameras. The project begun in the fall of 1993 and was finished in 1995 after much trial and error designing and perfecting this creation. Most of the cameras don't work but some do and actually take pictures of people as the Harrod drives. He created the car to be able to record peoples candid reactions to his Art Car. He has taken more than 5000 photos of people around the world. The word smile on the roof is created by in Kodak Instamatic Cameras. The Camera Van is currently at Art Car World Museum - Douglas, Arizona. For bookings, exhibitions, and licensing go to Art Car Agency. Harrod also published the book Art Cars and created two other art cars called Oh My God! a 1965 Volkswagen Beetle and Pico De Gallo 1963 Volkswagen Beetle. Thank you Harrod for your passion and dedication to this art form, you have inspired many of us to follow our dreams.

Jonas Dahlberg - the melancholy of illusion

There is a dark corridor, with just one passage through some light coming from the half-open door to a production room. The corridor is not long, so before I know it, I'm in a black room. There is apparently no light, except for three large, very, very dimly lit images. Actually, they seem more like windows, as what we see on them are interiors - at first glance it is hard to tell whether those are three rooms, or the same one. The rooms have a sensual, soft light, and everything about them seems dream-like.

That is a very comfortable place to be, delightfully melancholy, hidden in the middle, looking out into the private zone, the excessively private zone of what might have been a perfectly regular set of spaces, were they not so hypnotically absent.

If there is something at once appealing and haunting in this triple view, I am reminded that there was a TV set in the entrance. I go back, and the curator Katarzyna Krysiak tells me that although the video is an hour-long loop, it will start again soon and is worth watching at least the first minutes.
So I put myself comfortable. And the same room I saw on one (two?) of the pictures appears. And then, it starts melting. First, the back of the chair thins to nothing, and it falls apart. Then, progressively, the lamp gives way, the bookshelf (how could I have not noticed it before?), the table, the bed... The whole wax model (as it turns out) vanishes bit by bit.
According to the curator, this is the artists reaction to a friend's depression. It is inspired by how a physical space changes in such circumstances.
Johan Dahlberg is a master of disguise. But his masquerades are not about people. Rather, Dahlberg masks space. In his work (check out his site for several other interesting examples), illusion is the basis for questioning our relation with the space we see and feel. It comes as no surprise that among his favorite tools are models of rooms (their doppelgängers) and surveillance equipment. But contrary to many commentators, I have some doubts whether we can define Dahlberg's work through the prism of the "Big Brother" universe. There is so much more in his observing of our observing of an object! Be it with cameras and screens, be it through the nomenclature of surveillance and false spaces. But see, for example, this work from 2000, (Untitled) Billboard,presented in the Swedish town of Uddevalla:



The wonderful quality I find in these works is their capacity to confuse our sense of space, and question the order we assume as self-comprehensive. How mine is this space? Where am I in relation to it? And how sure can I be of it, of what it is?

The exhibition I visited at the Foksal Gallery (on until January 11) is part of an entire cycle called Quiet Home. What is the degree of irony in such a title? That depends on where you find yourself in relation to it, doesn't it?

The pictures from the exhibition courtesy of the Foksal Gallery.
Photos of Untitled (Billboard): copyright Jonas Dahlberg.

The Elements, Yarn Covered Art Car

Yarn Phone

This is Tim Klein and his 1967 Imperial Crown covered in Yarn. The name of the car is The Elements. He is also the keeper of the Art Car Calendar which is a list of all Art Car events taking place around the country every year. Thank you Tim!

Floppy Disk Art Car

This Weigand’s Floppy Disk Car, a 1998 Honda Civic covered with computer keys and floppy disks.
She wanted to create a whimsical art car so she used floppy disks that were both very cheap thing to acquire and would not add any significant weight to it. She found the disks at thrift stores and in peoples storage laying around taking up space. She had the car for a year before she started gluing the disks on. She also painted each disk and covered every visible surface of the car. The windows are covered with keyboard keys, covered the dash with sheets of old punch cards, adhered “esc” keys to the door locks, glued processor chips to the hubcaps and added a personalized license plate that reads “DISKDRV.”
She likes the attention she gets, but her least favorite comment is “You must have a lot of time on your hands!”

A HOLIDAY QUEST FOR MITIGATION

In an exchange with readers after my last posting I wrote,

if you go online and look at the 2,284 drawings in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, you will be stunned by the amount of unmitigated crap in their collection....the ratio of money to talent at the MOMA cathedral is downright asphyxiating.

Some of you scolded me for exaggerating. After all, would such a distinguished museum really purchase "unmitigated crap"? In the spirit of this holiday season, I thought I would post some of the offending artwork to see whether my more open hearted readers can point out the mitigating features I am missing. Here are some of the masterpieces currently enshrined in the collection of MOMA:













As I browsed through dozens of crummy drawings like these, I noticed that whenever I was tempted to give a drawing the benefit of a doubt I ended up deducting points for pretentiousness. For example, MOMA does not appear to own a single Disney drawing, yet it proudly features many lame drawings of Disney subjects by inferior artists:









Why should MOMA display such drawings while it turns up its nose at the Disney originals? Perhaps the answer can be found in a press release issued earlier this year, wherein MOMA praised "a psychological collage made by slicing and reconfiguring the pages of Walt Disney coloring books." The drawings in MOMA's collection are not lowbrow Disney entertainment, buster, they are psychological collages.

MOMA also has many exquisite pieces. But someone at MOMA obviously believes that no matter how poorly a picture is drawn, it can be redeemed by an intellectual purpose. Regrettably, these drawings and their intellectual purpose both strike me as unmitigated crap. However, I am confident that my network of art lovers out there can explain what I am missing.

Mirror Image Art Car

Mirror Image art car was created by Dennis Clay when he attached two VW beatles together. This car is represented by the Art Car Agency

Mirrormobile Art Car

Mirrormobile was created by Bob Corbet by attaching sheets of mirror to the outside of his Osmobile.
This car is represented by the Art Car Agency

Miss Vicky Art Car

Miss Vicky - artist Dean Pauley, St. Louis -
photographer Maurice Roberts 1997

Make My Movie Art Car - by Woodruff

Mirabilis Statuarius Vehiculum Art Car

This car is represented by the Art Car Agency
Scot "Extremo the Clown" Campbell

Jesus Chrysler Art Car

Love 23 Art Car

This car is represented by the Art Car Agency

The Love 23 Art Car was created Kathleen Pearson, a station wagon covered in a lot of toys and pez candy dispensers on the roof. Nice outfit as well.

Brickmobile Art Car

by fciron

Buick of Unconditional Love Art Car

This car is represented by the Art Car Agency
Buick of Unconditional Love was created by Philo Northrup

Aluminum Truck Art Car

This car is represented by the Art Car Agency
By Slim Sirnes

Art Car Festival 2007 in Mount Dora

2007 Art Car Parade Houston

Here is a few Art Cars from last years Huston Art Car parade, enjoy

Eartha Karr - Mercedes Art Car

Eartha Karr created by Blake More is a beautiful 1978 Mercedes 300CD running on Bio diesel. Blake is also a dancer, writer, artist and has an amazing list of accomplishments. This picture was taken during Art Car Fest 07 last year and I am looking forward to seeing her again in 08. There are not many Mercedes Art Cars out there, hers is truly amazing.

Whale Art Car

Radio Flyer Art Car by Bob Castaneda

The Radio Flyer Art Car was created Art Baker and his cousin, Bob Castaneda, in 1996 as a way to get a laugh and to "make people smile." It was It was built in 1996 from a 1923 Ford T-bucket and it is a regular at all the Art Car Fest events. I recently found a great story of the creation of the Radio Flyer written by Eilene Spear for the Davis Life Magazine called the Wagon Man, check it out.

Cinnabar Charm Art Car

California Fantasy Van Art Car

Banana Bike

Disappointed with the boring styling of conventional cars, Terry Axelson designed a vehicle with more personal appeal. Powered by two legs and a three-speed transmission, the Banana Bike can reach speeds up to 30 miles per hour. This Fiberglas and steel Art Car regularly cruises the streets of Sunnyville, California, where it is sometimes taunted by shouts of "Peel out!" Pictured in the Banana bike is Chuck Cirino of Weird TV, a show specializing in alternative culture.

Miss Vicky Art Car

Miss Vicky - artist Dean Pauley, St. Louis -
photographer Maurice Roberts 1997

Miss Vicky

This 1965 Dodge Dart has been shortened over 3ft and literally cut in half. It was created for 1960s pop star artist Tiny Tim who was famous for the song "Tip Toe Through The Tulips". It was hand painted with the song in mind and named "Miss Vicky" after his first wife, who he married on the Johnny Carson show on Dec 17, 1969. Tiny Tim rode in this car in 1995 in which he served as grand marshall in the Soulard Mardi Gras parade in St. Louis, MO.

Owned by:
Dean Pauly, St. Louis, MO