By Robin Wood
Special to the Record
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Local artist Scott Wade has been getting more international attention focused on his Dirty Car Art.
Wade recently returned from Istanbul, Turkey where he dirtied up two Peugeot hatch-back cars inside Cevahir Mall (pronounced Jeh-WHY-here), the largest shopping mall in Europe and seventh largest in the world. Larger than life posters throughout the mall advertised Wade's upcoming performance and proclaimed him "Tozlarin Efendisi" or "The Lord of Dust."
Wade created dusty images of typical Turkish icons Ataturk, the first president of Turkey; the Galata Tower, built in 1348; one of the Medusa Head column bases in the Basilica Cistern; a fishing boat on the Bosporus River; and by request of the client, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
“We found out we couldn't ship our usual materials to Turkey, so we had to hunt for them while we were there. If it hadn't been for our faithful guide, Cihan (pronounced Jee' hawn), we would have been in trouble,” Wade said. “Even with his help, the materials we did find didn't work as we expected and we had to improvise, but it all worked out fine.”
Cevahir Mall is six stories tall with a large, glass atrium in the center. It was in this central event space that Scott spent two days creating his original style of impermanent art. Thousands of curious shoppers paused to watch the artist at work and many would return from time to time to see how the art was progressing. The media were also interested in Wade's unusual creations and several national and local Turkish television stations and newspaper reporters requested interviews.
Wade became internationally known via the Internet when he was featured in a Central Texas newspaper column and bloggers world-wide linked to the online version of the article. Soon after, he created his own website, www.dirtycarart.com where he posts images of many of the pieces he has created.
After living for many years down a mile-and-a-half of caliche road, Wade would often doodle in the dust built up on the back windows of the family cars. Living over the Edwards Aquifer, keeping the cars washed seemed a waste of water — not to mention a lot of work — and he eventually started experimenting with various tools. In 2003, he developed this unique type of impermanent art.
Utilizing a rubber paint shaper tool, a variety of paint brushes, his fingers, and even sticks, he creates incredibly detailed drawings...on dusty car windows.
Scott has been approached many times for television appearances, newspaper and radio interviews, special events and festival performances, as well as corporate advertising.
In order to comply with these requests, he has had to develop a method of applying the dust to the car windows to achieve his "canvas" in a short amount of time. The artificially prepared dusty windows usually offer a sufficiently primed work area, but Wade says he still prefers the natural canvas that is created by the build-up of dust up over the span of a couple of weeks by repeated trips down a caliche road.
There's something about the passing of time that's required for a window to build up the right kind of layers.
Last month Scott created his largest drawings yet, on storefront windows in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Larger than life size, two windows on either side of the door sported art to fit the theme of the grand opening of a new swimwear shop. Over the course of two days, hidden from the public view by paper covered windows, he put his own spin on some American classic icons, "American Gothic on Vacation" and a surfing Elvis chased by Jaws.
“I loved working on the larger ‘canvas’ of the retail storefront windows. I had to develop a somewhat different technique, bigger brushes, etc., but creating the detail was much easier. It was really fun,” Wade said.
And for the future of Dirty Car Art?
"I can see all sorts of possibilities. Maybe some glass skyscrapers; imagine images 50 stories tall,” Wade said. “I think there is a world of artistic and commercial potential for this art form, and I'm really happy to get to do this in bigger and more interesting ways.”
