If you thought the Artscape art car furor would die down as soon as the city's biggest arts-and-entertainment festival came to an end, you thought wrong ("Parade Pronouncement," The Mail, July 19; "Car Wars," The Mail, July 12; "Carless Culture," Mobtown Beat, July 5). On July 24, the day after Artscape ended, City Paper received a letter from Linthicum-based art car designer and visionary artist Conrad Bladey noting that, despite the fact that art cars had been officially eliminated from this year's official festival activities in favor of non-gasoline-powered vehicles, some art cars were indeed allowed to be part of the program.
"The car of Dr. Bob Hieronimus and one other were included in the alternative artcar show," Bladey wrote. "Both vehicles are powered by petro chemicals. Now why did this happen? Who is responsible for yet another unfair rule change? And when will they be fired?"
Indeed, confirms Hieronimous, one of his art cars did turn up at the Autoternatives display, the curator of which, Doug Retzler, decided to focus on alternative means of transportation rather than traditional gas-guzzlers. Hieronimous says he had planned to display his design for a Hemp Hover-Craft design, a fan-propelled vehicle that would run on hemp fuel. He also planned to show his diesel-powered Founding Fathers art car at altsKape, an alternative festival going on during Artscape.
"I had to go between altsKape and Artscape," Hieronimus says. "And in going back and forth frequently, a policeman asked me: `Why are you going back and forth here? Look, why don't you just go in here and park it. . . . Then when you are finished you can get in the car and then go back over to altsKape again.'"
Retzler also acknowledges that two art cars, including Hieronimus' vehicle, were on display near Autoternatives. But he says it was a last-minute decision to allow the vehicles, made after he was given much more display room for Autoternatives than he originally thought he had. On Thursday night, he says, he was told he had Meyerhoff Plaza and space on Dolphin Street to work with-as a gesture of reconciliation, he says, he offered the extra space to art car artists.
"I said anybody who wants to come is welcome," he says. "And they did. On Saturday, Bob Hieronimus and another car, a wave car, came. On Sunday there was another couple of people there."
But Bladey, who was already displeased with the fact that Retzler and others marginalized the art cars in the original program, is now even less pleased. All he wants, he says, is for the art cars and their designers to get "fair treatment," respect, and hospitality rather than last-minute rule changes and confusion. He calls Hieronimus a "great guy, really wonderful," but he thinks his decision to take part in the Autoternatives show, in light of the art car debacle, was a mistake.
"When the issue came up about not having art cars at the art car parade, it's not so much the event, it's not so much the alternative-fuels thing," he says. "It's how people behaved and the choices they made in dealing with other people. This is not an issue of alternative fuels or anything else. It's an issue of how people are treated, when you are told you are not welcome."
Hieronimus says he was as upset as everyone else when he learned that Artscape would not have an art car exhibit, but he liked the idea of using art to spur discussion about global warming and so chose to participate in the event. "We can't keep maintaining the status quo, huge gas-burning engines," he says. "I was there trying to educate the attendees."
And in the end, he says, the art car parade that took place as part of altsKape ended up bringing a bunch of like-minded art car folks together in a way that may not have happened at Artscape. "It was extraordinary," he says. "I've never met such nice people. Bright, intelligent, independent. I hope in the future Conrad will embrace altsKape. If he embraces it he will love it. These are the kind of things he represents."
Perhaps Bladey will-but more than likely, he will keep trying to get more respect for the art cars at future Artscape festivals. Bladey says he'd like to see the art cars come back to Artscape, and he'd also like to see the local art car community grow.
Artscape planners "need to realize that this is a part of Baltimore's tradition," he says. "It's a tradition we should be proud of."
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