Art cars and Artscape: Can't have one witout the other

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88 days ago: Summer in Baltimore means another round of the ever-popular and ever-quirky Artscape

(File photo)
All of Conrad Bladey's cars will be on display at Artscape 2008.

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - You don’t need a car radio when you have 250 fish and lobsters on your roof singing in perfect pitch, “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.”

The musical sea creatures affixed to the car named Sashimi Tabernacle Choir will serenade crowds standing on North Charles Street during Artscape’s 15th annual Art & Other Wheeled Vehicle Show.

It’s impossible to exaggerate the Art Car artists’ creativity. Down to the horn that sounds the classic “brrring,” Howard Davis’ VW Bug appears to be a gigantic red telephone straight from your office in the early 1980s. In 1983, Davis, a Massachusetts art car artist, stripped his bug down to the chassis to create the mobile phone. He is one of about 20 creative forces showing Artscape audiences the intersection between art and our day-to-day lives.

Art cars connect with almost everyone in a positive way, said Conrad Bladey, one of the art car artists displaying their mobile art. “Paint something on your car, people will smile, laugh and wave.”

An act of vandalism threw Bladey into the medium of art cars, he said. “Someone put a bumper sticker on my old ’78 Dodge Omni, but I didn’t get mad. I just kept adding them on, and it grew from there.”

Drawn to Bladey’s eye-popping designs and larger-than-life presence, people constantly stop him at a light or in a parking lot to ask for a picture and an explanation.

His mission is to see more art cars on the road.

“You don’t have to be special or a trained artist,” he said. “Why should we all have plain cars when art cars make life better? It’s completely legal. You shouldn’t be intimidated out of making one, or harassed or worried. When people use ‘crazy’ and other terms like it to label us, that puts up barriers and keeps people from doing an art car. It’s important for me to let everyone know that anybody can do an art car. We’re artists who are ordinary people and make art as a part of daily lives.”

Throughout Art Car’s 15-year history Artscape organizers have questioned if the show has run its course and should no longer be apart of Artscape, said Gary Kachadourian, visual arts coordinator for the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts. “We were wrong every time we said that. Above and beyond everything else, people love art cars. Artscape is an outdoor festival and what better place to have art cars. They’re an integral part [of Artscape].”

Art Car Show curator Harrod Blank has spent nearly his entire life justifying the art car medium and why it’s a good for society, he said. “It’s a social glue and what people talk about when they go home for dinner. The big surprise is your car doesn’t have to be what people say it should it be.”

Blank created his first art car at age 16. “My white VW bug was so plain and boring at first, I was actually embarrassed to drive it,” he said. “I wanted to show everyone I wasn't plain, so I painted a rooster on the door and then covered it with symbols and objects that reflected my values at the time, like TVs that had been shot because I hated television. The car became my calling card.”

His passion for mobile public art led to more than 10 years traveling the country and filming art cars.

“After shooting Wild Wheels in 1992, I thought I've done it,” he said. “But then, I delved deeper into the art car artists’ stories to find out what motivated them, even when they didn't even know themselves. So I kept filming.”

“Wild Wheels” has evolved into Automorphosis, showing at Artscape on Saturday.

ART CAR SCHEDULE

• General: Cars on display Saturday and Sunday in the 1500 block of Charles Street
• Caravan: From the American Visionary Art Museum (800 Key Highway), Saturday at 11:30 a.m.
• Parade: Through Artscape festival, Saturday at 12:30 p.m.
• Automorphosis screening: Saturday, 8:45 p.m. in parking lot across from Charles Theatre (1711 N. Charles St.)

jnovak@baltimoreexaminer.com

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86 days ago: Be prepared: Driving in Baltimore will be difficult this weekend

» 88 days ago: Art cars and Artscape: Can't have one witout the other «

88 days ago: What’s happening at Artscape

88 days ago: Summer in Baltimore means another round of the ever-popular and ever-quirky Artscape