Recently in art carz Category

Okay, let's try to wrap up Friday on a slightly less hostile note. I mean, wingnut meltdown notwithstanding, it was a pretty okay week. So how 'bout puppies eating ice cream. Or maybe you'd prefer a golden retriever eating mashed potatoes.
If dogs aren't your thing, here's a pic of Yellow Submarine at Biltmore House. I met Gary (the driver of this awesome art car) at the Louisville parade a few years ago. Very nice guy. I think this photo was taken last summer when he was road-tripping up to Bawlmer for Artscape.

Saw this on one of the art car mailing lists (I think). Anyway, really awesome photos of a trip from Islamabad to Paris in a 1974 VW Beetle. The photos don't seem to stop before the trip did but still, way cool. It's not, you see, just any old '74 Beetle but Foxy Shahzadi, a 1974 Volkswagen Beetle painted with unique Pakistani truck art. That's their blog about the trip, which wrapped up last November. Plus the promise that more photos are forthcoming. I've still only just gotten started reading the blog.
Here's some more info on the inspiration for their VW, Pakistani truck art
And, no, I still haven't figured out how to get photos from flickr onto the blog. There's something about MT's later iterations that flickr doesn't seem to like all that much. Sarah did show me a way to get my photos posted here but that doesn't seem to work for other people's.

Check it. Recent local art car sighting. And it wasn't UMJ. Following links from the post on Take the Bull..., it was apparently the Great Lakes Ghostbusters Car. Which is, apparently, no longer of the Great Lakes but now locally owned.
How cool is that?
There are some art car folks who wouldn't consider a Ghostbusters car an art car. For all I know, the former and/or current owners of the vehicle may not consider it an art car. But I take an expansive-inclusive view and as far as I'm concerned if it drives and it's decorated, it's an art car.

Check out these awesome artcar photos. Steph and Stephanie, friends of spacegrrl, have created an amazing bottle cap art car, Inspired by their visit to the Louisville art car event in 2005. More details here and here. But not actually here, since I wasn't on that trip.

More art carz on the interwebs: Here's some shots of a new Hoopmobile. If there's a car artist that better fits the definition "wacky" than Hoop, I'd be damn surprised.
Also, this page of VW mods. Some art cars. Some sculptures. A few I've seen previously online. One I've actually seen in person. And some obvious photoshop jobs as well.
Like fun...

Art car in the news! Or in this case, art bus. Here's a write-up from Daily Kos, by Emily (creator of VainVan). The Topsy-Turvy bus was built by car artist Tom Kennedy (Ripper the Friendly Shark, among others) for Ben Cohen's Priorities Campaign. Lots of good linkage in Emily's article if you're interested in find out more about the project. (originally found this on boing²)

Or if you'd prefer your art cars with a bit less activism, here's some more photos from this year's Houston parade.

Here's some more photos from this year's Houston Art Car Parade. I'm particulary sorry to have missed the firecracker hat tribute to Dean Pauly.
(ETA: here are the official photos from this year)
Looks like our only art car trip this summer will be down to Mount Dora in August. The timing for Artscape didn't work out this year and local friends of ours are getting married the same weekend as Louisville. While there are drawbacks to central Florida in August (mainly that it's central Florida in August), pretty much everything else about the event is great and I'm looking forward to going back.

¡Woohoo! Just got notice in the mail today that my car is now paid off. Or in other words: it's art car time. Those of you not in the art car scene will, no doubt, find this an utterly bizarre choice. Rest assured, tho, that folks in the art car crowd absolutely could not understand why I'd want to wait until the car was paid off. To me it's like painting the walls in a rental apartment. Actually, it's probably more like taking out a wall in an apartment you're renting. Anyway, I've been kicking around a few ideas. Will just have to see where it all goes.

Here's an excellent photo essay on Aero Car 2. One of my favorite art cars (as mentioned previously). As a bonus, since these photos were taken in Minnesota last month, they're a nice last blast of winter as it gets ready to head out the door. Well, that's true 'round here. Maybe not so much where you are...

This isn't a very good picture but it is, unfortunately, the last one I took. I didn't know Dean well, but I was lucky enough to meet him at a few art car events. He'd been battling cancer for several years and when we saw him in Louisville last summer he said that his doctor had told him he only had 3 to 6 months. Just short of 7 months later that's proved to be all too accurate. I'd say that it's unfair that someone who was still enjoying life so much should die. But that's a cliché. And we all know life's not fair.
Here's a photo from Charlotte 2005. More light, less shadows...