The first thing I did was check with the art car gurus. Harry Leverette (of artcars.com) was especially helpful. He checked with some other artists and e-mailed me some discouraging news: "I've learned tonight," he wrote, "that your quest is akin to the grail itself--the means of preserving the paper-based art car."
Hmm ... well, the die's been cast. One way or another I'm going to Houston, so I have to make this work.
The first thing I realize is that cardboard is not going to work. So I soak the albums in the bathtub and peel the cardboard from the album covers, leaving only the paper. This results in (1) a stack of Whipped Cream & Other Delights wallpaper and (2) a very dirty tub. (Then again, can any tub really be dirty that has Dolores Erickson in it?)
The former album covers are now, basically, posters. But how to attach them?
In the nick of time Dryer magazine honcho Mark Simple comes through--he reminds me of the RE/Search book PRANKS!, where someone speaks of a wheat paste. You know those posters you see hanging on walls in New York City, still advertising concerts two years after the fact? Yeah ... "POST NO BILLS" glue--that's the kind of adhesive I need. I hunt around the net & find a web page called "Tips for Terrorists," devoted to urban terrorist postering, with a complete recipe for paste. It's supposed to be absolutely unremovable. Yep. That's what i need.
It's been uncharacteristically rainy in Tempe, so Burford the Elf kindly offers the use of his garage as a temporary artspace.
(A word to the wise: the paste works best when there's some humidity in the air.)
(Adjunct word to the wise: careful where you buy your ingredients. With my Web-cribbed recipe for homemade paste in hand, I strode into an Arab-owned grocery store near me. After glancing at the recipe, I strode right out again. I forgot that the printout heading says, "Tips for Terrorists.")
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