I met Jack in Marcola, Oregon in 1983. He was a master assemblage artist, often working on a small scale. His work is very economical with tight craftsmanship and funny titles. He coined the term “Elastic Symbolism” to describe this work because, you know, we all need our own “ism.”
East Jesus is an sculpture installation created by my good friend, Charlie Russell. It’s near the Salton Sea, Slab City and the great folk art piece, Salvation Mountain. Unfortunately Charlie died in 2011, but good people have preserved this site and art trying to keep it going as a 501(c)3 non-profit. Please support them!
Harrod Blank and I founded this festival in 1997 and staged annual ArtCar shows for over 20 years. Harrod also created Art Car World, an ArtCar museum in Douglas, AZ, on the Mexican border.
Harrod is a great filmmaker and friend. He’s largely responsible for the popularity of ArtCars world wide. Check out his newest film,, “Why Can’t I Be Me? Around You”
Emily is a great artist & friend and has made awesome ArtCars. She directed ArtCar Fest for years. Her “BraBall” sculpture is world famous and her work is in museum collections from coast to coast. She’s a trained fashion designer and painter, but is currently focused on mosaics.
Her husband, Ken, makes wonderfully subversive work that pops up in public spaces all over the SF Bay area.
Konnie May is a great painter, ArtCar artist and friend who created the Ashland Oregon ArtCar festival. She makes amazing clothes, often out of recycled garments from thrift stores. Check it out.
My niece, Jillian Northrup and her husband, Jeffrey McGrew founded this business and also Model No. Architecture, design, fabrication, these two do it all beautifully.
Costas Schuler is a friend, ArtCar Artist and Design whiz, and is the brains behind the coolest web sites out there (including this one). His “Mercedes Pens” ArtCar has been haunting Northern California for years now, and if your lucky you’ll be able to attach some new pens to his ArtCar at the Maker Faire.
JoAnne is a visionary museum curator and art historian, and my wife since 1990. She has created extraordinary exhibitions including the first retrospectives for Jennifer Steinkamp and Leo Villareal; “Late Harvest” and her latest epic show “Unsettled,” for which she partnered with Ed Ruscha.
This is an art, culture and technology blog founded by Scott Beale way back in 1995. Laughing Squid supported ArtCars and all sorts of sub-pop, SF Bay Area art and prankster culture and still does. Scott moved to NYC and his focus is global now – I’ll always be grateful for his vision.
I was in charge of acquiring content for Mondo Media’s web cartoon network from 1999-2001. Flash was brand new and Mondo had a great idea and great content but was ahead of its time in 2000. The cartoons are great and the artists who created them are credited in each of the clips below. I show them here in the hopes that others can appreciate their work.
