I live in Houston. My favorite day of the year is Art car parade day.
We go to the preparade lineup and wander around for a couple of hours
looking inside/outside everyone's pride and joy creations. SUCH A
PARTY!!! I worked on two art cars about 5 years ago. One was the Van
Gogh No Go Go. We painted a van that would not run and had it towed.
The front was his self portrait with the eyes on the windshield. One
door had a huge papier mache ear on it. The other side had no ear, but
"Blood" running down the side. The whole back end was painted like
Starry Night on both sides. The cut off ear was pulled along in a wagon
behind the van. Kids dressed as either sunflowers or Q-tips. There was
a kid who was holding onto the door handle on the side with the ear. He
was on skates and was being pulled along with the van slowly during the
parade. His head and feet were covered with white cotton, his body was
blue tights/leotard. He kept rubbing his q-tip head in the ear as we
rolled along!!! I rode a bike as a sunflower. The wheels were painted
like sunflowers with the hubcap as the center.
Our 2nd car was "The Fabulous Car-Den of Eden." We had an old Comet
car. Pukey green. We made papier mache heads like Adam and Eve that
were on the headlights. There were reins on their heads that went up
over the hood of the car, passing through a giant console TV set that
had the picture tube cut out so the driver could see enough to drive.
The reins went up to the roof where we attached a turquoise leather Lazy
Boy Recliner. A kid dressed all in white held the reins that went
through the tv back to Adam and Eve's heads on theheadlights. A sign
that said "The Word" dangled and spun in the TV set as we drove. The
sides were all covered with flowers. The trunk was removed, and we had
an apple tree/serpent and garden with a fountain back there. I spent
600 bucks out of pocket on this extravaganza, as did my friend, Lucy who
started the whole thing. We had kids coming over on weekends to help
work on it. I LOVED doing it but the school offered no money to do it.
We haven't made another, but some other teachers in the MS took it over
as an activity. The cars now are much less elaborate and totally kid
done. I think it's neat that the kids are doing it still, but I love
working with a bigger budget on this type of project. It's a memory of
a really amazing time and project for me. I yearn to do it again on
that scale.
