Kentucky Art Car Weekend

Yesterday’s fun in Louisville was pretty exhausting. We got up very early to try to make it in time to see the art cars outside the The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, on Main Street in Louisville, which is one of the really interesting, beautiful areas of town. It’s part of downtown Louisville, and is filled with art galleries, small storefront shops, cafes and the Louisville Slugger Museum, which we visited on a previous trip. We only spent a few minutes in the Museum using the restroom, unfortunately, because there were some awesome clocks by Randall Cleaver and by Ross Brown I really wanted to see more closely. But there was so much going on that it was hard to stop and peruse much.
We met up with Stephanie’s friend Lisa who drove up from Durham, North Carolina. Stephanie became friends with Lisa through the large New Beetle car show they attend every year in Roswell; Lisa drives a silver biodiesel New Beetle called Spacepod.

Spacepod in Louisville

We also met Lisa’s friend Sarah, who had one of the art cars in the show, called Undersea Mah Jongg. It’s a blue sedan covered with under water decor including fishes that play Mah Jongg on the hood of the car. It also features a bubble machine that tricks out the underwater theme by giving you the impression you’re deep-sea diving. And driving behind the car while it’s producing mass quantities of bubbles is pretty entertaining.

Undersea Mah Jongg

There were 20-some cars there, and some other interesting vehicles, like a giant rat fashioned out of a tiny motocycle, and a riding mower converted into an artwork with a working ferris wheel on the back.

That Car!

motorized rat

Ferris Wheel Lawn Tractor

Louisville has several instances of public art similar to the New York and Chicago art cows. They have numerous horses (for Derby days) decorated various ways by different local artists, and this year on Main Street they also had giant heads decorated as well.

Derby Horse

public sculpture

After checking out the cars at the Museum, we drove with the cars through Louisville in a small parade, where they ended up in a church parking lot where people came and talked to the drivers and there were prizes for the best car. Sarah won third place in the people’s choice contest.
We were all pretty beat after the parade; so we visited Lynn’s Paradise Cafe again on this visit, to get some air conditioning and much needed rest. And later we said goodbye to Sarah at the hotel and Lisa caravaned with us up to Indianapolis.
Photo Set: Kentucky Art Cart Weekend 2005.