This is the text of the presentation I gave at the 2001 Artscape ArtCar Symposium. I have not edited or changed any of it, including the misspellings. I have however added discriptives so you have a better idea of the actions that went along with what I was saying.

(I walked on stage wearing a long black coat, shuffling my feet and carrying a pile of papers. When I started to talk I stumbled and acted otherwise very nervous)

Umm. Hi. I'm Pixel. I'm the one who created The Cat. I'm sure you saw it outside. it's the station wagon covered in quotes...

(the following line was shouted out by a shill, a friend of my in the audience who had been enlisted for just that task)

"Excuse me, but why did you do that to your car?"

"Why? Well.. because..."

(At this point I threw off the coat exposing the black t-shirt with 'NO COMMENT' Emblazoned on it in silver, grabbed the mic and began packing back and forth on stage ranting into the microphone)

Do you have any idea how much I dread that question? 'Why?' It seems like such a simple query, and yet every time I get asked it, there is that moment of confusion, of disorientation as I try and come up with an adequate response.
I mentally rifle through all of the possible responses trying to decide if this one will be something they'll understand, or if that one will require the least amount of explaining, or if some other will just cause blank stares.
I didn't really *have* a reason why when I started building The Cat. Or rather, I didn't have a specific reason, I had the same reason for doing it as I have for almost anything I do in my life. I thought it would be fun. The idea of taking my battered but much beloved black station wagon and turning it into something completely unlike *anything* else on the road looked like it had the potential for such entertainment.
So I went out with my silver paint pens, and a copy of The Quote File From Hell(tm), my now well over 60 page collection of quotes from every imaginable source. And I started scrawling out little lines of text. The serious and whimsical quotes interspersed and without any rhyme reason or order.
That was back in August of 1998. Since then The Cat and I have come many miles and been through many experiences. And during that time I have come to realize other reasons, other things that drove me to do what I did. No one reason is The Reason and I couldn't tell you which one is a bigger reason than the next, but somewhere in all of them is why I do what I do.

(these bits were said like a calm conversation between two people, with myself speaking both sides)

'This is a pretty neat car. Do you know who owns it?'
Actually, that would be me.
'Wow, really? Who are you?'
I'm...

(back to ranting)

I'm really shy. Yeah, I know. You're looking at me and thinking 'He's up on stage, ranting into a microphone, and he's claiming *he's* shy?'
But I am. I have a hell of a time starting conversations with people. I don't know quite what to say, or I think that they won't actually want to talk with me.
So I have props, things I own, or wear, or fiddle with. Stuff that causes people to come over to me and say something, or ask a question. Then once the conversation has begun, and I didn't have to come up with an opening line, I'm off an running. And well, my artcar is the biggest ghod damn prop of them all. It's something guaranteed to cause almost *everyone* who encounters it to stop and talk for a minute or two.
And as for the ones who are too blind to notice it, or too wrapped up in themselves to care, or too worried what other people might think if they are seen talking to the freak who drives that car. The heck with them, they were probably not worth talking to anyway.
So I end up talking to people, and people I never would have encountered otherwise. I and a couple street kids sit on a street in Boston and discuss the realities of being gypsies in between their cracking jokes with and asking money from passing business people. I have a trucker in Rhode Island tell me 'If I ever did something like that, they'd have me in a bathrobe weaving baskets somewhere.' While sitting on the back bumper reading and ignoring the street scene around me, a lovely girl walks up to me and tells me 'Great car! Want a flower?' then pulls a yellow rose out of her hat and hands it to me and drifts off. I still have that flower by the way, it sits on the dashboard next to the one off my father's casket.

(conversational again)

'But what about the resale value?'
Sell...

(ranting...)

I love my car. No I LOVE my car.
Not like that. get your mind *out* of the gutter, thank you very much.
My car was something I felt suited me well back when it was not far from it's factory facade. Going the artcar route has taken that to whole new levels. Once I stop worrying about my car fitting into some societal view of what is right and proper, I can truly make it an extension of myself. My car is not all I am, and I am not all my car is. However she does give a glimpse into what it is like to live in my head. And the more I add to her the more she becomes and extension of myself.
In the movie Fight Club one of the main characters proclaims 'You are not the car you drive.'
Some of are the car we drive. Or anyway we make the car we drive ourselves.
And yes this sometimes means doing crazy things like selling our newer lower-mileage car in order to keep the artcar running, or spending more than the purchase price of the car to replace the dying engine. But that's part of the way this works.
If you pour your heart and soul into something, make it a very part of you. That very attachment makes it impossible to just get rid of it when it becomes inconvenient, or when it needs more work then you want to do.

(conversational)

'So you did all this yourself?'
Yep, Little here, little there. Whenever I had the time.
'What do people think of you?'
Think...

(ranting)

I *love* to mess with people. I absolutely love it. I like to do something that knocks them clear out of their preprogrammed view of how the world should work and forces them to deal with something they have no convenient preset way to deal with. In other words I like to force them to *think*. I don't care if they think I'm full blown batshit crazy, as long as they think.
So they ask me a couple questions, and they read a few quotes off a fender. And somewhere between 'I have a rock garden, last week two of them died.' and 'Does fuzzy logic tickle?' maybe they read something that slips under their radar. A quote that causes them to think again about something they've always taken for granted.
There are tons of people out there for whom a car is something to get them from point a to point b, and heaven forbid you do something different to your car in the process. And then here I come along. driving this older, high mileage, battered car with all manner of quirks and mechanical issues. And for gods sake what have you done to the paint? But they notice the stupid grin on my face as I'm driving along, or they see me pat the dented and scrawled upon fender lovingly as I'm getting out. And they look over at their car, the one they bought solely because 'it gets good gas mileage' or it came with the optional heated radio antenna. And maybe, just maybe they think again about what a car is, and what a car can be...

(conversational)

'You know, I always wanted to do something like this to my car...'
Doing it...

(ranting)

So you've decided to do it, the family truckster has been looking even more bland than before, and you're damn tired of losing it in the mall parking lot. So you decide you're going to go out and bolt a twelve foot long aluminum trout to the roof. Before you do though, let me let you in on the other side of artcars. The stuff we don't tell you in the membership pamphlets.

You will never be able to pick your nose privately at a stoplight again.
Now every time you pick something out of your teeth, or sing along to the radio, or any of the other dozens of things people do while driving. It will be almost *guaranteed* that you'll look over and find someone staring at you. If this kind of attention is something you don't want to deal with, invest in tinted windows, or start wearing a paper bag over your head.

Congratulations, your vehicle maintenance costs have just doubled.
So you took the old beater and turned it into a tribute to the Kiwi (either the bird, the fruit, or the shoe polish, we're not quite sure...). Now in addition to the mechanical side of it, there is paint to keep touched up, glued on bits to replace or repair, or modifications to keep maintained.
And of course once you've done it, you will as I said get really attached to it, so Murphy’s law says that the moment you get the artwork at it's majestic best something on the car (you decided to use the 'old' beater remember?) will fail in some suitably dramatic and expensive manner. And because you can't bear to part with it, you end up paying a mechanic who thinks you're nuts to get it back on the road.

You'd better be truly comfortable with everything you do and everywhere you go in you car.
Because people will never believe you if you try and say 'That must have been some other cadillac covered in gold shag carpet you saw parked there.' You have to realize that people will notice your car, and they will remember it. And they will relate where they remember you from at the most embarrassing possible times.
'Well it was good to see you and your grandmother again. Oh yeah, I ment to tell you. I saw your car outside the strip club last week.'

Dashing down to the corner for milk has just become an hour's project.
And if you own any clothing you're embarrassed to be seen in, you may as well throw them out now. No matter where you are or what you are doing, someone in some parking lot is going to want you to stop and answer a few questions. I know I said I love to meet people as a result of my car, and interact with them, but sometimes that has it's downsides. I mean, if you see a car come roaring into the gas station parking lot and the driver gets out and is making a beeline for the bathroom, this is probably *not* the best time to stop them and ask what the driving influences behind their sunflower covered dodge was.

There will be people who just won't get it.
And their not getting it can take many forms, from them rolling their eyes and wandering off, to snide remarks, to someone yelling 'faggot' out the window or their car as they drive past (which by the way sounds really weird with the doppler effect), and in extreme cases vandalism.
Yes it's sad, but there are people out there who feel that if something doesn't fit their narrow view of how the world works it shouldn't exist in their world. So you have to realize that anything painted or stuck on your car has the potential for getting damaged or destroyed. So if you can't live without it, at the very least put in on the interior.

(Back to calm tones)

there a tons of reasons to do it, and there are tons of reasons not to. In the end, it's only the artist themselves who can decide the if, how, and whys of their own.

Before I go, I want to share with you a line from Rick McKinney's poem to all his artcar friends entitled 'Build it and they will come.'

So have I scared you off yet? No? (big grin on my face) Good. I wish you the best of luck with your vehicle for expression, and I'll see you on the road.

(bow, exit stage right)