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| The Lady Art Car, 2005, at our home in Belton, TX |
In 2002, the George W. Bush administration began spreading misinformation on Iraq to prepare for war against the regime that, in the end, while oppressive and violent, had neither weapons of mass destruction nor anything to do with the attacks of September 11, 2001.
At the time, I was teaching full-time at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia, and was thinking of how to respond to the testosterone-laden messages dominating the news. Friends of mine who knew a lot about folk art had introduced me to the concept of art cars, ordinary cars modified into personal expressions of art. They told me of their friend Harold Blank, documentary filmmaker and art car artist, who drove his art car Oh My God in the Houston Art Car parade in 1988, one of the earliest parades. The annual Houston Art Car parade is the biggest art car parade in the world. I became determined to create an art car of my own and to participate in that annual event.
I turned my attention to the car I drove to campus every day. Tom's first response to my idea was horror, "You're going to ruin the car!" he exclaimed.
But once the idea was born, I couldn't let go of it. In war, the voices of men are the loudest and the prayers they lift up for vengeance are directed toward gods that are often imagined to be masculine and paternalistic. My art car, I decided, would reflect the voices of women, of hope and healing, of mending the ills of the world, and I took the image of Mary, the Lady of Guadalupe, as inspiration.
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| The Lady art car, 2005 |
I began collecting items from women's lives that could convey the metaphor of mending: buttons, sewing needles, anything related to mending and sewing or anything related to women's "everyday arts" passed down from one generation to another. I glued these items to the car, created lips with Great Stuff molded to the front of the car, painted the car, added fragments of poetry and images from my experiences. And to the back of the car, I glued a box in which I placed pen and paper for people to leave comments. Later, I added a chalk-board surface to the trunk lid and placed chalk in the box so that people could leave comments on the car itself.
Tom quickly came to support my crazy idea, the hours I spent modifying
the car, and the many trips we took to participate in art car parades,
beginning with the 2003 Houston Art Car Parade. Tom and the kids always came along for the ride.
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Family and friends turned out for my first art car parade in Houston, 2003 |
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| First art car parade, Houston, TX 2003 |
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| Austin Art Car Parade, 2004 |
From 2002 to 2007, I continued to modify the car, and I drove it in art
car parades in Houston (3 times), Baton Rouge (at least twice), and
Austin (at least twice).
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| I added this quote and broken pottery image after a conversation with an older student at Columbus State University. |
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| A little verse I wrote |
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| Buttons, buttons, buttons! And remnants of craft projects from friends |
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| Mending the world |
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| Onlookers, Austin, TX 2005 |
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| Austin, TX 2006 |
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| Baton Rouge Mardi Gras Parade, 2006 |
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| Baton Rouge Mardi Gras Parade, 2006 (a friend of the family and my daughter--in the middle back) |
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| Our son rode along with the Lady in the 2007 Baton Rouge Art Car Parade, bravely wearing the hat I made for him as part of his costume. |
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| Me with Harold Blank before the 2007 Baton Rouge Art Car Parade |
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| The Lady on display in the Howard Gallery in Temple, TX |
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| The Lady in Howard Gallery, Temple, TX |
In 2007, we moved back to Georgia after a sojourn in my home state of Texas, and I drove The Lady in the last parades she was to be seen in: a 4th of July parade in Decatur, GA, in 2007, an Oakhurst Festival parade in Decatur, GA, and the Inman Park Parade, in 2008, I believe.
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| 4th of July parade, Decatur, GA 2007 |
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| Oakhurst, Decatur, GA |
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| View of the Oakhurst Festival crowd as we passed in the Lady |
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| Before the Inman Park Parade, Atlanta, 2008 |
Driving The Lady in all these parades and interacting with those who came to see the show was such a wonderful experience. People with whom I might otherwise have never had a conversation with would tell me their personal stories. Strangers at gas stations would approach as I was pumping gas in The Lady to ask me questions or to comment. Stopped at a gas station in Alabama on the way to a parade, I was asked by one woman if I told fortunes. I laughed, "No, I don't."
"Well," she replied, "You look like a woman who knows things."
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| I have a journal full of notes people left in the box I glued to the art car |
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