Mobile Expression #6 - Antioch Church

What a great day! Wonderful people enjoying their Sunday in what better way than expressing their faith and ideas on my car. Even though I may not share their enthusiasm, I am more than happy to share my car as a canvas. The folks at Antioch Church are very welcoming and happy.

As irony would have it, I went and saw Religulous last night.

mikey

Another great night!

A beautiful night in Kansas City. Great people, great beer, and wonderful conversations. Thanks to everyone who came out and took part. It seems like the weather will most likely turn cooler in the next few months, so I wonder if tonight was one of the last times for the year.

Interesting tidbits for the evening:
my grandmother's dog, Benny, tagged along and had a great time greeting artists who came by.
My friends, Tommy, Brian, Sasha, Erin, Joel, Audrey, Susan, and family Susan and Sarah all came out.
There were an amazing amount of visitors from other countries out tonight. I saw Japanese, German, and someone wrote "Vote for Obama" in Hebrew.

Another great night. Thanks so much, see you next month.

Oh by the way, a lot of you were taking photos and I would love to see them. you can email them to me and I can put them on the blog, or you can post them in a comment.

And if you read this, leave me a comment so I know someone reads this.

thanks,
mikey

OCTOBER!!!

Well, October is a great month. I like because it usually marks the beginning of hoody weather. Some may call it sweater weather, but I prefer hoodys. I wish they made business casual hoodys for men like they do for women. Maybe I can get one from SAFEHOME.

Oh well, there are already 4 events scheduled for October. 3 of them in a row! There is still an open invite to anyone who wants an art car car at their next event.

Quick! before I start charging!

JK!
mikey

Rain, Rain, Go away!

Nothing is worse for a chalk board car than insensate rain. (I hope I am using that word right?)
It has rained for the last few days pretty hard and all of the FF mural is gone, except for a little bit of the whale.

I look forward to the next event. I am thinking of setting up an events calendar so people could know where I will be.

Maybe no one cares though?...

Mikey

mobile expression 4

Last night's mural may have been the quickest lived one yet. I finally left around 9:30 and after waking up this afternoon around 2, it is all gone...

The rain took it away as I explained to so many people last night. Fortunately I took 113 pictures of the evening, so if you wrote on the car you probably have a picture of yourself doing so.

Check out the photos and don't be afraid to leave comments.

Weird stuff that happened last night:
An anarchist(not that there's anything wrong with that) (who might have also had some mental illness issues as well) decided to "draw" all over everyone's art, supposedly in an artistic way? Very peculiar. I felt like intervening, but at the same time, I felt that this is what you get with public art: public artists. Everyone is invited: from McCain supporters, Obama supporters, sweet little kids who want to spend 20 minutes drawing their masterpieces much to their parents dismay, to the socially awkward anarchists that to a socially and civic-minded person seems very unfortunate, everyone is invited.

I met an art teacher from Blue Springs named Dennis who seems like a great guy. We talked for a bit and he drew on the car.

My aunt, sister-in-law, wife, and about 6 friends came out to hang out.

No weird lady's from Wichita this time though!

Thanks once again to everyone who drew on the car. Without you, it would just be a black car!

mikey

No Bueno!

So, last night some kids put some pretty harsh racial graffiti on the car. Pretty sad. I came out to the car as I was rushing my wife to school, so I quickly wiped off some and marked over other, with chalk. After dropping my wife off at school, I decided to go by the Middle school to talk to the art teacher about the mural project I am working on, and the janitor told me I couldn't have the car on school property. I guess I left an area that said, "SUCK MY". I had erased what to suck, but in my morning stooper, didn't erase that. My bad!

So I ran home, washed EVERYTHING off, put on my work clothes and went back to the school to see the teacher. Hopefully everything is alright, but we all know how middle school gossip can turn into a mountain!

Other than that, I am looking forward to the upcoming First Fridays down in the Crossroads. I think I will once again park at the Leedy-Voulkos. There was such a good turnout last time, I can't wait to see what happens next week.

Thanks,
mikey

Black Dog Coffee Shop

So, i met with Angel Dew this evening at Black Dog Coffee Shop to go over mural related stuff. I decided to drive the Metro out and park it in front of the shop. I told a group of people outside if they got incredibly bored that they should write on the car. They seemed pretty excited and actually drew some pretty great artwork. Probably the best the car has seen as of yet.

People keep asking me how I came up with the idea. I usually tell people about how I used to work at Home Depot and always tried to come up with interesting ways to utilize the 500 million different things they sell. BB paint was always a favorite for its potential...

Go out and VOTE!!

So, I figured the blank slate wouldn't last long. I went out last night and put a whole bunch of, "Don't forget to VOTE!! today" slogans on the car. I also put a list of things for me to do and a grocery list for the day, which I crossed off as I completed them. Pretty handy.

I also ran across some guy on Flikr who did a small section of his hood in BB paint. It looks pretty cool. I think it is a great alternative if you have a section of your car that doesn't look too great; BB it!

All clean!

So, I washed all of the First Friday mural off of the car. It came of great, expect for a section where some girl used her own, "non-approved' chalk. She used an acrylic crayon of some sort that won't come off with simple soap and water. Oh well. That's why I bought a little extra BB paint.

Until next time...

First Fridays at the Leedy 8-1-08

I had no idea! I didn't think so many people would love writing on my car. Fortunately, I was wrong. There must have been over a hundred people adding to my car's art. Fay and I parked the car at 6:00 and 30 minutes later, the whole car was covered. I went to Lulu's noodles w/ Fay to get some dinner and when I go back there was hardly any space left. I would like to thank everyone who contributed to tonight's art. It all looks great.

Some funny anecdotes:

There was this guy I met, Tracie, who does energy healing and readings who said that the car was the next big thing next to the drum guys up the street.

This lady went walking by looking for the Blue gallery. We tried to give her directions, but she gave up and said she was from Wichita and their Final Fridays was so much better. I offered for her to rest and write something on the car. She declined.

A couple people thought they knew me from a past life.

One lady took pictures of me in the car.

overall, it was a great night. I think I might try other spots in town for different perspectives to the art. if anyone wants a BB car at their next event, let me know!!

Yesterday in amongst the rain showers, I got the car painted. It looks really good now with surface prepped, two coats of primer, and two coats of BB paint. We are SO ready for First Fridays. I have been telling everyone about it and can't wait to see who all shows up. Hopefully you will!

WOW! SO I am using Google Analytics to track this webpage and it says that 18 people looked at the site yesterday! For my first website, that isn't too bad.

The car is in various stages of primer right now. It rained last night, so I am waiting till I get home tonight to paint it. I pick up my wife, Fay, tonight from the airport! She has been gone for two weeks in Guatemala. So I may not get back to the blog for a couple days.

Thanks for the support!
mikey

I just found a great little cartoon about chalkboard cars
http://www.dislocate.org/archives/early/fiction_folders/bernardy/bernardy_chalkcar.htm

pretty funny and thought provoking!

UH OH! I found another chalkboard car on Flickr. I guess I'm not the only genius out there. Oh well. It was still my idea originally. Just goes to show you, if you can think of something, chances are that someone else has already done it!

Continuing on!

So,, it appears I may have my first gallery opening! I was talking today to the director of the Leedy-Voulkos gallery and she said she will let me park in front of her gallery on August 1st, next First Fridays. I am trying to get the car in tip-top shape for the event. I would appreciate any other ideas for making this a cool event. I was thinking some cool lighting effect? Maybe inside the car. A really subdude light? maybe some nice music in the background? Any other ideas?

mikey

Clear coat: bad idea

So, tonight I decided to go and start over the chalk board. I took the car up to the carwash and started blasting away the lovely artwork. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the hood, the clearcoat which had the blackboard paint on it, decided to chip away. Pretty bad actually. Almost the entire hood was turquise again! SO I got it home and lightly sanded the entire car to get any remaining clear coat that was chipping off, and to roughen the surface. I bought two cans of primer and primed the entire car. I will respray the blackboard paint tomorrow and see how that stays on. I did find that instead of just blasting it, the foamy brush at the car wash works almost better and is far less harsh on the paint. So, lesson to those who may follow my footsteps, prep the area, primer, and multiple coats of BB paint.

cell pics

So I finally got around to taking some pictures. Unfortunately, my wife has our nice camera, so I am reduced to my cell phone camera. I knew that would come in handy some day. So here they are before it rains or I have to go wash it. Someone paintballed me over the weekend as well. Not what I had intended.

Silly idea

So I started this project with an idea. I used to work at the Home Depot and spent many boring nights thinking of cool uses for all of the 5 million products. 1 of the products I saw had great potential: blackboard spray paint. It only costs $4 a can. The beginning!

Last December, my aunt gave me her 91 Geo Metro. I love/hate this car. It gets 42 MPG which is awesome, but every time I turn around something has fallen off. The doors don't work very well, the door handle broke (inside and outside), rust has consumed a major portion of the passenger side door. But, this all added to my resolve to do something fun with it before it finally dies.

It only took two cans of the paint to create a VERY matte black finish. My friend Scott came over and we bought a bucket of sidewalk chalk and started drawing on the car. My final addition was an open invitation to any and all passerbys to add their artist expression to the car. I drove to Westport to see my cousin Ian's band, Echo of the Elms, and more people had added to the car. While sitting at my house, some neighbor kids came over and tagged it with their names and a giant face for the front.

I will begin by taking pictures of the car and continue to update this blog with new additions. Each time it rains a blank canvas will emerge for a new group of street artists.

Watch for it in and around Kansas City.