Spring Break
RIDIN' CRAFTY: Car manifests themes of religion, afterlife
KATIE ANDREW
Issue date: 4/29/09 Section: News
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Most car-owners have a blank canvas sitting in their driveway and don't realize it. Four Athenians, however, have unlocked the full potential of these automotive blank slates.
Chris Hubbard: Heaven and Hell
"Most people react to it with puzzlement and shock, the same way they would a punk rocker walking down the street with a bunch of piercings," said Chris Hubbard, owner of the local "Heaven and Hell Car."
For those who haven't fallen victim to whiplash in the wake of this automotive spectacle, Hubbard's vehicle is completely adorned in objects and text that exhibit a colorful, cohesive theme of religion and the afterlife.
"Whether it was Michelangelo or Howard Finster or Latin American [religious art], I've always liked it," he said.
Hubbard credits his interest in statues and imagery to a Catholic upbringing. His car displays hundreds of different physical manifestations of religious metaphors: tiny wooden saints with clever names, a "casket" luggage carrier and quirky phrases representing the dichotomy between good and evil. A self-described agnostic, Hubbard particularly enjoys watching public reaction to his car.
"I like to celebrate my interest in religious art, even though I don't practice organized religion," he said. "I knew that some people would be thinking, 'Is this guy some religious nut?' and others would be thinking, 'Is this guy some devil worshiper? Sure enough, that's what I get."
Hubbard started turning his 1990 Honda hatchback into a mobile art exhibit in 1998 when he took time off of work to pursue photography.
"I remember thinking, 'Man, I hope this car lasts 200,000 miles after doing all this work on it'," Hubbard said.
Now, more than 10 years and 325,000 miles later, the car shows no signs of quitting.
"If you're going to do an art car, it'd sure be nice to have a Toyota or a Honda because they last," he said.
The "Heaven and Hell Car," as long as it's lasted, hasn't always been able to stay out of harm's way.
In fact, the vehicle came close to meeting its own maker one night in Savannah.
"This drunk sailor backed into my car and busted my tail light," Hubbard said.
"I could go to the junk yard and buy a replacement tail light for about 50 bucks, but it wouldn't capture what happened."
It's important to note that despite all the complex themes of faith, Hubbard's car maintains an exceedingly simple mantra: 'A little good and a little bad, like most folks.'
"You have to have some good to understand the bad, and vice versa," he said. "Nobody's perfect."
Lisa Tantillo
Lisa Tantillo, a freshman painting major from Atlanta, can be seen cruising through campus in a delightfully vivid ride reminiscent of Janis Joplin's famous Porsche.
"Both my parents are artists, so they were actually supportive of me painting my car," said Tantillo, who completed the project the summer after she graduated high school.
On one side of the car is the colorful image of a female flautist with musical notes streaming from her instrument that bear the words "Music is my aeroplane," a Red Hot Chilli Peppers lyric.
On the other side, amidst many psychedelic shapes and hues, is the image of a cartoon aircraft with vegetables falling from it that reads "Drop Beets Not Bombs."
"I looked at a bunch of Jefferson Airplane art for the fonts," Tantillo said of the thick, curvy, '70s-style letters.
Tantillo's art car is especially unique because she has found a way to avoid the permanence of her personalizations.
"My parents have a shop where they wrap buses and airplanes with vinyl - it's a digital imaging company," Tantillo said. "This is all their scrap vinyl they had around the shop. I completely wrapped the car in it and painted over the vinyl."
The process sounds simple enough, but Tantillo assures that it was no small task.
"Wrapping it was the hardest part of the whole thing," she said. "Basically it's so thin that when you pull it off, it's a sticker, but it sticks to itself. And when you're doing the curves you have to use a blow torch."
Tantillo said that she hopes more people will be willing to make their cars unique now that there is hope of resale.
"I think the whole vinyl thing is a new medium-that hasn't been explored because it's mainly on buses and planes," she said. "I'm hoping it will come off clean. You're supposed to put an extra sealant on it, and because I painted the vinyl, I couldn't put that sealant on, so it may have melted to my car ... We'll find out."
Devon Young
Devon Young, a sophomore international affairs major from Madison County, is often scooting around town in the "dinosaur car," a small, white hatchback decorated with elementary illustrations reminiscent of children's cartoons.
"Artists always talk about connecting with their inner 5-year-old when they draw, but drawing like a 5-year-old is kind of my default," she said.
Young doesn't claim to be an artist, but enjoys delighting passersby with her unique ride.
"People are always asking to take pictures of it while I'm driving," she said. "It's kind of embarrassing how high-profile it is because it breaks down all the time."
Young said she often finds herself broken down in the middle of a busy intersection with frustrated drivers honking and yelling from their vehicles.
"It seriously breaks down every other time I drive it."
Nevertheless, Young said having the liberty to get creative on her car was well worth its unreliability.
"My parents raised me to believe that material things are just material things," she said. "You should have fun with it."
This isn't the first art on wheels Young has had the pleasure of driving.
"My friends and I always painted our beat-up cars in high school," she said. "I had one that was a lot better, but I got this car when I started college because I killed my other one."
Young especially appreciates the collaboration that went into making her art car. She actually only painted the dinosaurs on the right rear - other contributions were made by her friends.
"If anybody wants to paint on my car and has their own paint, they're welcome to," she said. "It would be awesome if people would contact me to add more to the car. I've kind of gotten tired of what's on it except the dinosaurs."
Peter Loose
Local folk artist Peter Loose drives his work-truck-turned-glitter-mobile with pride. Interestingly enough, it wasn't even his idea.
"The artist, Clyde, is a friend of mine that lives in Chapel Hill, N.C." Loose said of the brain behind his vibrant vehicle.
"He's kind of the Howard Finster of North Carolina."
Loose said the 70-year-old artist never learned to drive, but he frequents the passenger seat of the truck, "This is his dream vehicle."
Loose said as soon as he met Clyde years ago, he knew they were kindred spirits.
"We're both happy-go-lucky, critter-headed weirdos."
Their friendship began when Loose started picking Clyde up from his Chapel Hill home and taking him places he wanted to go.
"This used to be a very plain, gray work truck," he said.
"Clyde started drawing on it for kids one afternoon and I told him to go for it - it was an ugly truck."
Dozens of drawings later, the truck is a visual treat covered in glitter patches, plastic fruit and crude paintings of forest creatures.
"He's most recently adding his critters to it," Loose said. "It's very Clyde - the glitter, glue, paint ... it's a scene. He's enamored with animals - dinosaurs are a big thing to him."
Loose said his life has never been the same since his truck turned into the Clyde Mobile.
"It does not matter where I go - [the truck] is either something surprising, or it's just another wonderfully happy thing to see," Loose said.
"Everybody responds. You don't get non-response. As I'm driving, everyone has a camera phone hanging out the window - even locally, which is bizarre because everybody knows me."
Loose recalled a particularly amusing comment he received from an elderly woman while standing in line one afternoon at a bank.
"This lovely woman gets in line behind me, all dolled up. All of a sudden her voice just erupts, 'Whose truck is that?!' I turned around and said, 'That's mine, ma'am.' She said, 'Well, I wish my hoe of a husband had a truck like that. Then when he was hoochin' around, I'd find him!'"
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