The Art Car Page

This Yellow '68 VW Bug's name is 'Barney'

Art Car by Alex Kash

Reprinted article from the Harbinger Quarterly magazine

I've been in the music business for the last thirty-something years, but I've recently been upstaged by Barney, my Volkswagen Art Car.The car has its own personality and its own way of doing things, and I'm just learning to adjust to the magnitude of it. It all started with my Aunt Blanche, who I hadn't seen in years, who let me know through my mom that she wanted to give me a car.
Aunt Blanche is one of the truly open-hearted members of my family. She looks more like the Tlingit Indian part of my roots and the rest of us look more like the Russian part. So maybe that's why she has a special gift for the giveaway. Potlatches notwithstanding, I was ready for another car.
She was sitting in the rusty blue Volkswagen Bug when we got there, emptying it of her personal stuff. She started telling me how much she had loved this car, but it was leaking lots of oil and she wasn't a mechanic, so she had purchased a new car and was ready to donate the Bug to someone. I was looking forward to having a car I had more knowledge about from my gas station days working for my brother. I looked it over and patted the roof as I talked to my aunt.Even the rust wasn't phasing me, especially since the car was free - a price I couldn't argue with.
When we drove it home, we realized just how much oil it was leaking and how quickly it was going to need fixing. I started to tear apart the engine the next day with the help of my faithful book "How to keep your Volkswagen alive: A manual of step by step procedures for the Complete Idiot." Oil had been spilling out of the engine and spewing everywhere, so a lot of cleaning was in order.
Once I got it put together again, the sound of the engine running was complete ecstacy. Next we had to decide what to do with the rust. There were no holes, just the omnipresent coloring. That's when my wife got the idea for an Art Car. She had always wanted to do one. Being an artist myself, I didn't need much encouragement. The idea was to make it an expression of light, magic, playfulness, and creativity.
We started out with playing cards on the bumpers, but after the first few winters of replacing them, we gave that up. The rest was paint, toys, and lots of clear silicone to hold them on. People gave us bags of things from their kids, and we heard from other Art car people that 'One Shot' is the best paint, being that it's expressly for outdoor signs and such. It has lead in it though, so we were told to be careful. My wife and I started painting, and the car took a life of its own. Being a 1968 Bug, it wanted to do the flower power feeling. We just flowed with it and it emerged on its own, perfectly symbolic of itself.
The flea market started to beckon us, and pretty soon we were like every other Art car person we knew - obsessed with things that no one else thinks about. The first thing you realize about driving an Art car is that you are NOT invisible anymore. Even though that shouldn't come as a surprise, it does. Where you were once a normal driver, now you are expected to be an Art Car enthusiast. This comes as a surprise because there are days when you are that, and days when you are just trying to load the shopping into the car and get gas, with other pressing matters on your mind. Here's a bit of wisdom for anyone considering an Art Car; Don't think it will change you, but realize that it will change how people see you. Let's face it, there are days you just wanna be normal, and this is why some really strong Art Car enthusiasts have retired their art from time to time.
When you're in the car, you think you'll experience all these reactions as a bystander, but it doesn't work, because like an artist milling around in a gallery displaying his work, you're onstage and very visible. You're driving the art! You are now the responsible party to answer questions and experience reactions. I don't think any other art form takes you into its world so completely, sometimes when you least expect it. However, the multitude of reactions and comments are the stuff life is made for, and I'm grateful. It keeps life interesting.
I was sitting in my car one day, and I had this sudden illumination that I wasn't alone. I was with my car. Because it has so much personality, I am no longer a man in a car, I'm a man with a car. That's fine until the car starts to express itself with its own wants, needs and jealousy. My wife and I were recently driving past a classic car sales lot and I was saying, "oh look at that beautiful '52 Olds, I have to have that car, it's so great!" Suddenly Barney began to slow down. I was pressing on the gas, but I wasn't getting any power. My wife interpreted for me. "Barney is jealous about the '52 Olds, you have to stop thinking about that other car." Realizing the car wasn't really a person with human emotions seemed obvious, but my greater experience with the car said she's probably right, so I stopped thinking about the Olds, and the power came back.
In my own Tlingit culture, the spirit of things is understood. Masks and rattles represent and also contain permanence in form, an energy that connects them to something greater. I was starting to experience Barney with a Tlingit understanding. The intention of the art had been an expression of light, magic, playfulness, and creativity, and it was coming back in a way that was expressive of my roots. Was our heritage really that present in our art? If so, then this car must be Russian too, and my wife's cultures as well.
Body and soul, I am a musician, and I thought Barney had nothing to do with my music, but recently Barney has thought otherwise. He has recently been requested to appear at my gigs. That's not all. Barney attracts lots of attention and questions. The most frequent are; "Did you do this?" and "Why?" Barney seems to inspire everyone's VW Bug story, which there are more than you can imagine, and some of them are really funny. People seem to have the same opinion, it's not just a car, it's an experience!
Another thing about an Art Car is, everyone will be seeing you in this car, your landlord, your employer and banker, your kid's friend's parents, etc.One day, we were sitting at the top of a steep hill in the S.F. financial district. I was focusing all of my intention on keeping the car from sliding back down. People were streaming into the crosswalk, and a guy in really fine Italian clothes started to examine the bumper with toys glued to it. My wife said "Gary, it's Gary!" She got the window down by the time he had crossed the street and yelled hello. He turned to look and said in the most perplexed tone "Bethany, is that you?" followed by a look at the car, and me like, what has he done to you? Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Either way, we drive Barney wherever we go, period.
The third thing about Art Cars is that it's not going to be just a paint job and some glue. Art Cars require constant upkeep. These are the kinds of things you realize when you back your bumper near a truck in a tight parking spot and a half dozen toys go flying to the ground. The upside to this is that you can change things all the time. The flowers on our car have changed through constant repainting, to bursts of light. It seems to have worked, because bees used to hunt for pollen in the last design, and that doesn't seem to be happening with this one.
The fourth thing about Art Cars is that people will experience them in their own subjective way. It's art! A cop stopped us on our way home from a late night gig, about one of our lights. He walked around the car slowly and sniffed the inside of the car to make sure we weren't doing anything illegal. Then he said, "Is that a Calaveras County Frog on top?" We insisted that it was indeed that same, even though that hadn't occured to us before. Other people were interpreting our art, and we were absorbing the reviews as if it were our own reality. This is what fame does to art I thought, but it also seemed to make the cop happy, and that was good enough for us. He let us go with a warning and a laugh.
The last thing is, the car will be more famous than you so... deal with it! I've been a musician for more than thirty years, have songs on two multiplatinum selling albums, and have worked with dozens of great artists in major studios throughout the world. But people still have trouble getting my name right. at a recent gig, I finished a song and someone said "Hey, this is the car from Arnold!"

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