Car Art Enthusiasts Display Their Masterpieces
Lobsters, mannequins and dentures are just some of the decorations.
OMAHA, Neb., Sept. 18, 2009— -- It started with a row of dentures just above the grill. Then another denture on the trunk, a used-up toothpaste tube, a toothbrush. ... Rex Rosenberg couldn't stop.
"I decided I wanted to glue something to some car," he said.
So Rosenberg, 63, created ChewBaru, The Mobile Masticator, formerly a totaled 1995 Subaru Legacy.
A few feet away, Richard Carter was surrounded by fish and lobsters, each of them belting out Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." His car, christened the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir, is covered with about 250 plastic singing sea creatures: bass, trout, catfish, sharks and lobsters. It elicited giggles from the crowd, even from one muscular tattooed passerby.
More than two dozen car artists from all over the United States drove their creations to Omaha, Neb., for the Central Art Car Exhibit, held Sept. 5-7. They included Rosenberg, of Great Bend, Kan., and Carter of Houston.
Car artists spent hours, months and even years turning their cars into mobile canvases. And during the summer, they gather at art car shows around the country where spectators marvel at sights, such as a giant red telephone on wheels, a dinosaur car, a "yellow submarine," a gothic castle car, and a mini airplane.
Last weekend, the Hot Times Community Music and Arts Festival in Columbus, Ohio, featured art cars, and there's another art car show happening today in Washington, D.C., as part of the H Street Festival.
To those who think, "I could never do something like this," Carter says, "Well, that's absolutely wrong. All you have to do is to be nuts enough to think that you can do it and stick with it, and eventually it'll happen."
Peter Lochren, a 39-year-old artist from Omaha, Neb., launched the Central Art Car Exhibit a decade ago after attending a number of art car shows, including ones in San Francisco and the biggest one of all in Houston.
"My vision is to get it out there," Lochren said, "so they can see something that maybe they can say, 'I can do that myself.'"
