I've always loved art cars!

For years I wished I had the guts to take paint brush to car and commit to a design that I'd be willing to drive around town. Five or six years ago for my birthday I asked Richard to order several "magnetic mosaic" kits so that I could decorate my car without the stress of finding the perfect design I would have to live with for a long time. Several week later a HUGE box of tiny colored magnets appeared. The company had sent me all of the seconds- slightly irregular sized squares of magnetic foam - about 10 pounds worth!    Hannah, Maya, and a few of their friends came over one chilly day and we created "the four seasons van" in my garage. Summer was a spread out on the hood of the car. A beach scene with waves and swirls of fire works. Spring worked its way across the driver's side door showing live above and below ground: blooming flowers and a family of ground hogs. Fall was the pre-requisite school bus and flag poll, and winter of course was a white snow storm.

I throughly enjoyed driving around town and hearing comments through my open window.  Over the next six months through  snow, sun, rain and wind many tiles fell off and soot and grime settled into the gaps like hardened grout.  At the end of the summer we pulled off the remaining magnets and headed to the car wash. Although I contemplated a variety of other designs and tried some different types of magnets I never managed to create and implement a cohesive design I wanted to live with.

Every summer I go to ArtScape and fantasize about what my perfect art car would look like. I have seen art car movies, attended lectures by Harrod Blank and even participated in an art-vehicle project The Visionary Art Museum's Kinetic Sculpture Race.  I can't seem to get rid of that nagging feeling that I am destined to make and drive an art car.

As my 50th birthday approaches in mid-November I am finally feeling mature, confident, and crazy enough to permanently alter an expensive car that I will never be able to resell and will have to drive until it falls to pieces.  Hey its better than driving a mom-van for the next 100,000 miles!

So here is the plan dear friends...

Please help me design the most amazing, wonderful, intellectual, funny, obscure, unique, totally Joan-like art car.  I will take all of the ideas you share on this blog and discuss them with my art car project facilitator. S/he will work with me to craft the ideas into a cohesive design, select materials, and prepare the "canvas".  On a weekend in early November, hordes of friends and family will camp out at my house for two days, eat, drink, laugh, play music, dance and transform my Honda Odyssey dark blue mini-van into a mobile work of art.  

Sounds like a fun way to spend my 50th birthday huh?  So lets hear from you!