The art-car parade's rude, lawless roots

Over the last few decades, the Houston Art Car parade, organized by the Orange Show, has become Houston's annual celebration of itself — a rolling catalog of quirk, yes, but also an annual civic event that the chamber of commerce brags about. School groups participate, and usually, so does the mayor. 

Rice University has an Owl Car. Toni, the Healthy Eating Cart, is sponsored by Baylor College of Medicine's Dan Duncan Cancer Center. There'll be entries from Theatre Under the Stars, DePelchin's Children's Center. and the Houston Solid Waste Department. The rolling musical acts will include the Kazoo Ensemble of the Hampton Post Oak Retirement Community.

It's a sweet, G-rated event, a little safer and more organized every year. It's come a long way from the parade's rebellious roots.

Houston's art-car movement got its start in the early '80s, when car fever broke out among students at the University of Houston's old Lawndale Art and Performance Center, a place where young artists drank beer, hung out and tried to top each other. A gallery exhibit called "Collision" both caught and fed the automotive zeitgeist. Jackie Harris created "The Fruitmobile," a rolling still life. Noah Edmondson and David Best made art go-carts, which they pitted against each other in battle. And Scott Prescott produced "The Ghetto Blaster," a rusted-out half-Impala, half-Caprice with tank treads instead of wheels, a cannon mounted on the windshield and a flamethrower in back. It didn't run, but even towed on a trailer, the thing radiated evil.

The parade was born in 1986. On behalf of the New Music America Festival, artist Rachel Hecker and artsy salon owner Trish Herrera convinced a handful of car artists to cruise down Montrose. The funky street performance included baton twirlers, artists carrying paintings, and a herd of sexy, tough roller skaters. Photographer George Hixson, himself on skates, shot the whole thing.

That parade was supposed to end at the brand-new Museum of Fine Arts sculpture garden, whose inauguration was the festival's culmination. To inaugurate the tasteful garden, designed by Isamu Noguchi, minimalist composer John Cage would play a concert.

But the art-car spectacle had taken on a rowdy life of its own — a life that refused to end in good taste and minimalism.

Instead of stopping, Scott Prescott turned around, and with a rude roar and a cloud of black smoke, he towed Ghetto Blaster back up Main Street. A rock band and a herd of lawless skaters trailed behind him — creating their own unofficial, unpermitted, legendary parade.

They weren't being good citizens. They weren't representing Houston or representing anything at all. They were just being their own wild selves. Art cars were like that then.

Lisa Gray (@LisaGray_HouTX) runs Gray Matters. She wrote a lot of this article in 2012, when it first appeared in the Chronicle. But that was a long time ago, and she figured you'd forgotten.

Bookmark Gray Matters. The thing radiates evil.