– Tim Klein

So now it’s unavoidable. All of that nasty old asphalt has to be wrestled loose, little by little, while trying to keep the resulting dust out of one’s eyes and nose and mouth. And then the sagging structure has to be replaced with new trusses, etc. Here we see Kevin Ratliff and Francisco Valencia attacking the mess with pry bars. Behind them is another section waiting to be demolished, while at the bottom right is a gleaming section of new roof already completed. In all, the roof is over 11,000 square feet, so this is no small undertaking.

And while we’re at it, here’s a shot of Kevin Ratliff (left) and Francisco Valencia repairing stucco on the front of the Art Car World building. Good job, guys.

Land Yacht by Eric Lamb arrived April 21, 2009

We currently have 18 vehicles, including the most recent to land here, the “Land Yacht,” by Eric Lamb! 6 of the vehicles are on tour for the remainder of the year with the new film I spent 13 years making, “Automorphosis” Thus the museum progress will be a little slower this year. I am hoping to work on another 16 feet of the roof this winter. We are currently half way done with the new roof. After that gets done likely end of 2010, we will begin work on the floor and the design work. It will take at least a few more years to complete, and this will depend on how much money we can raise.

If you want to make an appointment to visit, try back in the winter since we will be touring with the film through November to raise awareness. The film does end with the Art Car World Museum so it will be getting the word out.

We have done a lot since 2005, but we still have a ways to go!

Thanks for your interest

Here’s what Art Car World looked like in the very beginning. As you can see there are 8 art cars all of which are under the 1/3rd good roof which we spent over a month building. The dirt floors and the lighting will be improved over time as will the overall design. It will be fun to see the progress.

First stop: the Integratron. We were invited there by Bonnie & George Kopp, who own the True World Gallery in Joshua Tree. The Kopps met Gretchen and Kate in Bisbee (both ArtCar artists), who told them about our trip. Not only did they arrange with Nancy, The Integratron owner, for us to get a free sound bath, they also fed us lunch. Our reception was grand and the ArtCars were parked around the Integratron dome. The Sound Bath was very relaxing “ lying on our backs looking up at the beautiful ceiling listening to music played on 9 quartz crystal singing bowls. The building itself was evidently designed to be part of a giant, hybrid-tesla-coil machine, which would alter matter in the manner of the Philadelphia Experiment. Its creator, George Van Tassel, did not finish it.

Lunch was great too, and we met some local artists including Bobby Furst, who really dug the aged patina of Daisy Singer and invited us to his studio.

Before that, however, we headed off to the amazing outdoor museum of Noah Purifoy. Seven acres of amazing assemblage, and it looked better than ever as obviously some refurbishing had recently taken place. This art installation is kept up by a foundation (Ed Ruscha is a big supporter).

Noah Purifoy was a great artist who worked on this place into his 90s. The ArtCars met him briefly during our 2003 tour, and he died shortly after that. It’s hard to describe this place, except to say it’s some of the best found-object sculpture on the planet, covers a large space out in the desert, and that you can’t see everything in one visit. Photos really don’t capture it, although it’s hard to take a bad picture here.

After communing with Noah for an hour or so, we meandered over to Bobby Furst’s studio, which is in a idyllic location next to the entrance of the national park. He’s got a ranch house, silver Quonset hut, and an airstream there – all of it chock full of cool found objects and sculpture. Inside his studio, massive beams hold up a loft room, and his bathroom is covered in copper. It’s a palace of Elastic Symbolism.

As if we weren’t already overwhelmed with a full day of visual beauty, the skies formed an amazing backdrop for all the art we saw. Lenticular clouds hung like UFOs all day, and then as the sun set it the sky exploded with color.

We floated off to our campsite in the big rocks, intoxicated with all that we saw.

We all got up early and headed off to Elmer Long’s Bottle Tree Forrest in Oro Grande, right on route 66. It’s a great installation. The bottle trees function as very beautiful pedestals for his assemblages, which are mounted on the top.

Elmer says he discourages donations because he’s happy. His wife, Linda, is happy too (Elmer does the dishes). I told him I’m retired from my day job to do assemblage full time and (do the dishes) too. It’s the way to be.

As is often the case with eccentric artists (like ArtCar folk) Elmer was welcoming, lucid, and articulate and his good vibe was infectious. Completing the analogy was Elmer’s dog, Charlie.

We went down route 66 a piece and stopped at the first service station at Oro Grande Center. It didn’t have restrooms so we walked across the street to a park with public bathrooms, but were immediately confronted with friendly, but quite sleazy park denizens. Raya tried to use the ladies room but a lady in there was shouting “Hello” Theresa is that you?” “hello?” Raya tried to communicate at first, but then decidedly wisely that the woman was circling the airport and the ladies room was out of order. Theresa, in fact, was outside accosting a gentleman who was trying to compliment our cars. Half his nose had been shot off or bitten off (not recently). He tried to brush her off:

Nose-man: “Why don’t you leave me alone?”

Theresa: “Why don’t you leave this park alone?”
“Can you PLEEZE not get in a fight do DAY!”

It was clear from her intonation and his face that she was referring to fisticuffs with strangers not squabbles with her. It wasn’t the only hint that we needed to vamoose so we started to mosey, but just at that minute Ken wandered into the men’s room so we all spent an uncomfortable couple of minutes chatting with half a dozen tweaked out desert rats.