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Art show shifts into first - The Buffalo News

"Art on Wheels" rolls out the first of its creative models

By TOM BUCKHAM
News Staff Reporter
8/29/2002

During "Herd About Buffalo," Bill Wilson was the herd doctor - the fellow who went around repairing the wounds vandals inflicted on the decorated fiberglass bisons that made up the wide-ranging outdoor art project.

Two years later, the Niagara Falls artist is leading the stampede. Wednesday, organizers of "Art on Wheels - Artists Recycle, Reuse and Reinvent in 2003" rolled out Wilson's "Bug on Bug," the first of dozens of art cars that will motor onto area streets and highways as the region's next big public art project revs up next spring.

Judging from the enthusiasm that greeted his psychedelic 1975 Volkswagen Beetle topped by a metal grasshopper, "Art on Wheels" is sure to tickle the public's fancy.

Many of the 200 people attending the news conference in the former Pierce-Arrow factory at Elmwood and Great Arrow avenues couldn't wait to have their pictures taken sitting in or standing beside Wilson's creation.

Getting the car was easy, but finishing the artwork in time was a struggle, the artist said.

The VW was lent to "Art on Wheels" by Jack Anthony, retired executive director of Cradle Beach Camp, who bought it four years ago from a student who had repaired it as part of a class project.

Anthony said he has spent so much money to keep the car running that his children asked,"Why don't you just buy a new car?" "I am - piece by piece," he replied.

Wilson spent lots of time rummaging through junkyards before stumbling across the object that changed Anthony's classic Beetle into a unique work of art - a rusty gasoline tank that became the body of the bug on the Bug.

He welded sturdy metal wings, legs and a tail to the tank and bolted the sculpture to the roof of the bright yellow car - to which he then added abstract appliques in a variety of colors.

"I tried to convey serious art," said Wilson, who cut the decorative shapes from paper, pasted them on the auto body and hand-brushed them with sign paint "in what I thought was a good composition." He finished the job with less than a day to spare.

"Art on Wheels," which will run from May through October, will place large outdoor sculptures commemorating Buffalo's historic ties to the automotive industry at dozens of cultural and heritage sites in Erie and Niagara counties.

Artists will create art cars or fanciful sculptures based on the wheel and made from recycled or found materials.

Artists and sponsors are still being sought for the project, which will benefit Burchfield-Penney Art Center and the Materials Reuse Project, said "Art on Wheels" Chairwoman Cindy Abbott-Letro. Sponsorships start at $4,500 and include a $2,500 artist's stipend.