LAFTA Art Car Parade

LAFTA is very excited to have sponsored our first Art Car Parade - July 14, 2007 featured inside of this year’s Spring Ho Parade in Lampasas.  Two Art Cars participated in the event.  After the parade, the cars were displayed in the Hanna Springs Sculpture Garden as “Art in the Park”.  In keeping with this year’s Spring Ho theme of Mardi Gras, LAFTA volunteers prepared and served a Cajun lunchmix played in the background.   (Thanks to KCYL for providing the music.)

The cars featured in the parade seem to represent two major lines of thinking when it comes to the creation of art cars.  The first is that a car must be licensed, road worthy and driven every day.  The other is, well…. Maybe it is best described as “put as much stuff on it as possible”, and make it fantastic.

The first school of thought was represented by ‘Carsmos’, a car on loan to us by Lois Goodman.  When asked about her car she replied “Most people's cars are a reflection of something they enjoy or that means something to them.  Mine is my world ‘CARSMOS’.  The front is earth, the side the sea, the top the solar system, and the back the city of Austin.  I had a Rolling Stones car, a 58 VW, it was ‘MIC LUV BUG’and it said "Can't get no traction".  The same VW was covered with Tarot cards and was called ‘Psyched Out’ and had a gypsy that road on top only during the parade.  I also had Peaches on the Beaches which had a voluptuous mermaid on the hood surrounded by the sea theme with a sand castle on the top.  Our cars themes have a lot of meaning to us.  We do them because they are fun and really, why not. Wouldn't it make the world much more interesting if everyone had an art car?  After you do a few, you see every car as a blank canvas just waiting for that first hit of glue or paint.”

The second line of thinking was represented by a car on loan to us from West Austin News.  Fantastic might be an understatement when describing this car.  Although it was not licensed or road worthy, for that matter, oh, how it shown!!  It had to ride on a tow truck through the parade, but this did not take away from itsmagnificence.   Arty description of the car. I don’t have a picture on hand.

We are delighted about the success of our Art Car Parade, as well as the Jambalaya and Shrimp Boil Picnic Lunch.  The entire event was so much fun.  If you did not get a chance to join us, keeps an eye out for announcements concerning next year’s festivities, as well as other LAFTA sponsored events throughout the year.  If you would like to receive LAFTA Newsletters and announcements, please sign up for our mailing list by e-mail or by calling 512-556-6997.

The volunteers that made this all possible, and the float that was entered into the parade in front of the art cars. Followed by shrimp boil, jambalya and Cajuin music at the Hanna Springs Sculputre Garden in Campbel Park.

Special thanks goes out to Bushes Fired Chicken, Walmart, HEB, McGehee Towing and our volunteers, and most importantly, the people like you who participated to make this event a great one!