Downtown Vancouver’s gut has turned out to be just as cruiseable as ever this summer. After some confusion and doubt, it now appears that vintage car lovers will be able to swarm Main Street July 15 to worship the objects of their passion — as big and shiny and colorful as life.
Today, you can enjoy a preview gaze at the same automotive glory through the eyes of local artists. The Boomerang art and charity shop on Main Street has long planned to mount a July art exhibit joining in the joyful madness of Cruisin’ the Gut, the massive annual festival of stylin’ vehicles that started up in July 2009, right outside Boomerang’s front door.
Even when no cruise appeared to be headed toward Vancouver’s gut this year, Boomerang decided to go forward with its show — because the call to artists had already gone out, and many of Vancouver’s finest had already answered. If there was no actual cruise outside on the street, curator Tom Relth figured, Boomerang could invite folks inside as a sort of substitute.
But an actual substitute event did get organized by local merchants — Cruise the Couve is set for July 15 — and Relth is happy that Boomerang never even considered shifting into reverse.
If You Go
“Cars, Cars, Cars” art exhibit.
• When: Reception from 5-9 p.m. today.
• Exhibit continues: Through July 28.
• Live pin-striping with Paul Mackie: 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2-7 p.m. July 15.
• Where: Boomerang Fine Arts, 808 Main St., Vancouver.
• Admission: Free.
• On the web: www.boomerangvancouver.com/
• First Friday Art Walk: Download the monthly “hotsheet” at www.vdausa.org/first-friday-downtown.
“I’m really thrilled that we pressed ahead with the ‘Cars, Cars, Cars’ art exhibit,” Relth said. “You can’t escape that we are all married to the automobile, whether the relationship is romantic or otherwise.”
‘So rich and shiny’
Auto-loving artists on display will include Barbara Van Nostern of the Southwest Washington Watercolor Society, who remembers first being fascinated by cars when she was a young girl in a family with “lots of love, and no car,” she said. “My uncles both had cars that were so interesting. We would play in them and pretend we were royalty and wave out the back windows.”
Fledgling artist Van Nostern, sensitive to color and sheen, was especially fascinated with her grandfather’s 1955 DeSoto — “the tricolor exterior was so rich and shiny,” she said.
Her mother, an art teacher, taught her how to capture that intensity and shine in her own works. If that didn’t hook her, Van Nostern said, then winning $1,000 in a national watercolor show with her very first auto portrait — a 1934 Chevrolet — sure did.
“I’ve painted many cars and trucks, from old rust buckets to the shiniest of show cars,” she said. “I’ve painted many commissions of beautifully polished chrome and people’s family cars. Each painting is close to my heart.”
A reception with live music and light refreshments is planned for 5-9 p.m. today at Boomerang, 808 Main St. During the cruising event on July 15, Boomerang will host local sign painter and vehicle pin-striper Paul Mackie, who will work on a “rat rod” on the street right in front the shop from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and again from 2 to 7 p.m.
