art car

Art Car Parade Prep – Allen OldiesMobile

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Whew! I’m still breathing hard. Just got back from the beer run for Saturday morning.

I usually have regular thursday night and friday night plans. I bailed on both of them. No thursday games with friends. No friday running sound for the Ringwalds.

I helped out Allen Hill in preparing the OldiesMobile for the Art Car Parade on saturday. Lot’s of starts and stops, and success and failure, as art cars are want to be. But I think we’re ready for the morning.

I borrowed a generator from our service department. It is built to support an ambulance, so it’s totally over engineered for running a band. Loading into my car with a fork lift was the first warning – this things gonna be heavy.

Thursday, Allen and I moved it from my car, tested it, it worked great. We moved it into the Mobile. Friday I get home, he’s in my driveway, we move it from the Mobile, it’s a no-go. We call Sir Henkel and with three, we 1) pick it off the ground to a table, 2) off the table to the hood, 3) off the hood to the roof. Job performed, Sir Henkel retreats.

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Chron: Commercialism and Art Cars

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Here’s an article against corporate infringement into the art car scene. It’s more invective because of it’s harsh title – which is just typical “journalism”. I heard a few discussions on this topic at the many events I was at. Mostly, the corporate cars don’t show for the quirky events and thus don’t effect the “counterculture vibe”. The parade is a media event, and I fully expect corporateness to show up for a 250,000 person crowd.

I heard one major complaint about the McDonald’s shoe visiting schools on Friday. It’s a reasonable complaint, though one not shared by all artists. The complaints about the Shoe’s stereo being too loud are much more common.

What humors me the most is the social elitism of the comments to the article on the Chron’s web site. (“It’s not art because I don’t like it.”)

Is commercialism driving off fun of the Art Car Parade?

A few say sponsors detract from the event’s counterculture vibes

By SARAH VIREN
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
May 13, 2007, 9:57PM

Patrick Stanley exhausted his supply of souvenir hard hats an hour before Houston’s Art Car Parade started Saturday. Each bore the name of the construction company he works for, SpawMaxwell, just like his art car, a 1958 Edsel Pacer.

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Chron: Hit The Road

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Here’s an art car story that ran in the Chron prior to the parade. It’s a traditional feel-good pre-parade story. Very unlike the Sunday, post-parade attempt to stir the hornets nest.

HIT THE ROAD

Bumper-to-bumper funky – For many artists, Houston’s Art Car Parade is a chance to show off their skills in front of thousands

May 9, 2007, 7:02PM
By EILEEN McCLELLAND
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Giant electric toasters, dancing lobsters, fire-breathing dragons, pirate ships, life-size statues of ZZ Top.

You name it, think it or dream it, and you might see it on the road during Saturday’s 20th annual Houston Art Car Parade. This year artists from at least 16 states will send 250 vehicles of all descriptions for a ride down Allen Parkway.

Houston’s is the oldest and largest art-car parade in the world, a party put on annually by the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art. Last year, more than 200,000 people watched a flying saucer, a fat rat and a collection of penguins all ride into downtown.

Beyond striving to reach new heights of creative expression, artists also vie for $10,000 in awards in 14 categories. Awards will be presented during the Orange Show Brunch and Awards Ceremony, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday at the Orange Show, 2402 Munger.

Here’s a glimpse at what four regulars are working on for this year’s parade:

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