May 20, 2004
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Cover photo caption
story & photos by ELLIN BELTZ
Thaumaturgy: n. The act or art of performing something
wonderful; magic.
HUMBOLDT COUNTY IS A PLACE OF
WONDERFUL, OFTEN MAGICAL OPPORTUNITY -- true thaumaturgy flows
between its striking natural landscape and its artistic
inhabitants. The area's most unique artistic spectacle, the
Grand Championship to Ferndale Kinetic Sculpture Race, began
quite humbly in Ferndale in 1969 as a challenge match between
some local artists. Thirty-five years later, it is a local tradition
and, thanks to the evangelic fervor of Ferndale artist Hobart
Brown, the race's self-proclaimed "Glorious Founder,"
it is also a growing passion elsewhere in the world.
Besides the Grand Championship
there are annual kinetic sculpture races in Ventura; Corvallis,
Ore.; Port Townsend, Wash.; Baltimore; even as far afield as
Perth, Australia.
It seems almost everyone in
Humboldt County knows Hobart; the man is a famous -- or infamous
-- local celebrity. Most tell me to only believe half his
stories, and the sheer number who swear they were involved in
his most outrageous exploits -- pig hunting with homemade spears
in the woods outside Petrolia, Halloween parties that may or
may not have inspired satanic cults -- suggests some sort
of mass hysteria. Then again, this is a man with a knack for
making people do bizarre things -- at the least, propel human-powered
sculptures 35 miles across pavement, mud, sand and water every
Memorial Day.
Hobart doesn't race anymore
-- he can't. At age 70, he has a very bad case of rheumatoid
arthritis; his bones are practically eaten away to cartilage,
and each step he takes now shows in his face. The heat of Australian
summers, which, of course, correspond with our winters, helps
his condition. For the past nine years he has spent the winter
there, and regularly attends the Perth Kinetic Sculpture Race,
sponsored by the Princess Margaret Hospital and local Rotary
clubs since 1998.
Unfortunately, this year even
the antipodean heat didn't seem to help and Hobart returned home
from Down Under upset because he felt sure he couldn't travel
to Baltimore for the annual race there May 1. As a friend, I
offered to go with him to make the journey easier; he accepted,
and about as quick as you can utter the kinetic battle cry, "for
the glory," I had packed my race outfit (bright red dress
covered with yellow and orange triangles), a notebook and my
camera. Four days later we were on our way to Baltimore.
Getting
acquainted
Taking off from Humboldt we
flew over the whole Grand Championship course -- Arcata Plaza,
Dead Man's Drop, Crab Park and the finish line in Ferndale. Then
we were over the lands beyond Humboldt; 2,700 miles later we
arrived after dark in Baltimore to be whisked away to our digs
for the week, the lovely town home of "Kinetic Seer"
Lane Burk.
The
next day we met Rebecca Hoffberger, director of the American
Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) and founder of Baltimore's Almost
Famous Annual East Coast Championship Kinetic Sculpture Race.
[photo at right:
Rebecca Hoffberger with Hobart Brown]
She's one of those people whose
accomplishments make you feel like a slacker. She was the first
American to apprentice to noted mime Marcel Marceau, and has
volunteered on medical projects delivering babies in poverty-stricken
parts of Central America. Most recently, her vision and energy
have been devoted to her museum, a five-story remodeled brick
building right on the city's harbor that displays work by people
not trained as artists; and to the race, which the museum has
sponsored since 1999.
To top it off, Hoffberger is
a stunningly beautiful older woman, sixtyish, tall, blonde going
gray, with a graceful, erect figure and the lithe movements of
a cat. She really belongs in Humboldt, I thought, when I met
this warm and friendly woman -- although no doubt Baltimore needs
more laid-back intelligent artists to balance its frantic yuppie
rat racers.
Right after lunch we watched
the unloading of Cirque du Sore Legs, an engine and two-car
sculpture with six pedal positions modeled on a circus train.
A film crew from the Discovery Channel covered the action, reminding
us that this East Coast Kinetic Madness is taken seriously.
Hobart was guest of honor at
a racers' meeting that night at the museum. His duties included
bestowing the official title, Kinetic Seer, along with the symbolic
pendant, on Theresa Segreti, who works for the museum and has
taken part in the Baltimore race multiple times. The seer award
is given to those whom Hobart has selected because of their understanding
of the kinetic spirit and their determination to keep the races
running and start new ones. The museum's "Mother Teresa,"
as she's called, is the person to be honored with the title.
I am proud to say that I received the 13th Seer Award in 2002
for my work in keeping the Kinetic Sculpture Museum in Ferndale
up and running.
After that the entertainment
moved to a screening of a new movie by Christian Hellmers
of Cockeysville, Md., titled Hobart and the Race of the Kinetinauts,"
which is what the Baltimore racers call themselves. The film
intercut interviews with Hobart discussing kinetic history and
philosophy with clips of the Baltimore race.
Final
preparations
The next morning, unloading
and preparations continued on The Rat, Fifi, Bumpo and
the other machines that were clustered in the museum's Kinetic
Annex. They have a whole building dedicated to things kinetic,
and are constructing an additional structure that will house
a permanent kinetic museum and workshops for racers. Think of
it as Arcata's Kinetic Lab plus the Ferndale Kinetic Museum rolled
into one, but five times bigger than both.
I left with independent filmmaker
Lisa Lewenz, best known for the 1998 film A
Letter Without Words, which grew out of her Jewish
grandmother's successful effort to visually -- and surreptitiously
-- document life under the Nazis. Over the course of a few hours,
Lewenz and I went on a jaunt into several states -- you
can do that back East -- where we saw machines in various stages
of readiness for the race: some finished, some still under construction.
Finally, we ended our day at a farm near Pennsylvania where a
most amazing kinetic family had clustered for their very own
pre-race victory dinner.
I just know I'm going to get
some of these relationships all mixed up, but the family is composed
of two sets of twins, one male and one female, and their non-twin
siblings. They would all be on a sculpture titled Bedlam
as pilots and crew. The family is already covered in glory having
won multiple Mediocre Awards, Aces and Pilot Wings and sported
their very own "Leaping Beaver Race Team" logo gear
and patches. Besides a sly grin, the only explanation they'd
give for their logo is that their sculptures have represented
the Punxsutawney groundhog and other famous smaller furry mammals.
Talking with the Leaping Beavers,
I realized some of the incredible parallels in these two races.
Both have teams of people who come back year after year working
on their designs and determination. Awards are given and taken
very seriously. Both reserve as their highest honor the Ace Award
for piloting a sculpture perfectly and without assistance for
the whole course.
It became clear that kinetic
traditions that we take for granted in Humboldt have been adopted,
some imparted by Hobart, others learned by watching old videos
of the Grand Championship. It was curious. These kinetinauts
imitate the Grand Championshyip in many ways, in other ways they
are freer, more artistic and less self-aware.
The Leaping Beavers were fascinated
by similarities and differences between their race, the Australian
race and ours. We eventually realized it was late, and the gathering
broke up amid spontaneous cheers of "for the glory!"
The Two-Headed Dragon was built by students at Southern High
School, which recently split its arts and academics curricula.
Race
day
Before returning to our quarters,
Lewenz and I toured the race course, cruising Baltimore's darkened
streets and Inner Harbor into the wee hours, which meant I ended
up getting just two hours of sleep before waking for the 8 a.m.
Eastern Standard Time brake and safety check. (It was 5 a.m.
back home in Ferndale.)
Hobart and I arrived at the
museum to find a scene of frenetic activity, with sculptures
being pushed, costumes being tweaked, bubbles flying, music blaring,
kazoos tuning up and various other wild and wacky happenings
spreading from the museum to the adjoining park.
The opening ceremonies included
an all-kazoo rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner,"
one that I found particularly moving knowing it was composed
by Francis Scott Key right there in Baltimore. Next came the
Blessing of the Feet by "the Mad Monk," resplendent
in a brown robe and sunglasses. Racers lay on their backs with
their feet in the air for the blessing, after which they climbed
the hill at the edge of the park and waited to begin their LeMans
style start. Then, with the sound of a starting bell, they were
off!
Hobart
climbed into his official golf cart, piloted by Chief Judge Ed
and accompanied by Seer Lane and Judge Kim. [photo at left] I
followed in a media golf cart shared with a reporter from the
Baltimore Sun, a full crew from the Discovery Channel,
Lewenz the filmmaker and our driver, the museum's director of
development, Marcia Mjoseth Semmes.
Kinetic racing has its own rules.
Art, engineering and speed are judged at the local Grand Championship.
Baltimore has similar awards, including "the Mediocre Award"
for its middle of the pack winner, but by necessity, some of
their rules are different, reflecting the more urban nature of
their race.
As in any Kinetic Race, several
machines broke down right away, others died in water hazards
and on the city streets. One had to be trucked to the first water
hazard; I wondered how many hours penalty that might be; it wasn't
quite a "tow," after all.
Every time we came to a corner,
we encountered kinetic volunteers holding up signs that looked
like chickens telling racers which way to go -- and at the same
time holding out their hands for bribes. Bribes, for kinetic
virgins, are offered by racers not only to volunteers but also
to members of the crowd and even race officials in an effort
to influence balloting for the various awards, including "People's
Choice." In kinetic sculpture racing, as Hobart likes to
say, cheating is a privilege, not a right.
There was also a police escort,
three or four Baltimore cops on three-wheeled motorcycles, who
kept whipping along ahead of the racers, then stopping and blocking
traffic for the race.
The sculptures and golf carts
careened through Baltimore neighborhoods full of brick townhouses,
with their famed marble steps, and past brick churches. We passed
schools with teams in the race where large crowds of cheering
students and parents waived their teams onward.
Perhaps the most specifically
beautiful contraption in the race was The Two-Headed Dragon,
which boasted an airbrushed, almost graffiti-style paint job
on top of thin foam, and a sculpting job that was meticulous
right down to the teeth. It was the work of students at a local
high school that had recently undergone a restructuring which
separated the school into arts and academics. The students explained
that the two heads on their sculpture represented how they felt
about the change.
Fifi gets wet.
A
watery challenge
After innumerable turns and
twists, we arrived at Canton Harbor for the first water hazard
of the day. Entering the water via a sloping ramp, some sculptures
proved themselves worthy, but many would have benefited from
a centerboard or keel, some sort of propulsion system and, perhaps
most importantly, some testing before race day.
A machine built at the Franklin
and Marshall College of Lancaster, Pa., titled La Kafkaracha,
floated beautifully. Unfortunately its best direction was
sideways and the crowd roared as the two pilots frantically pushed
and paddled to avoid being dragged away from shore.
From a distance it was hard
to differentiate between their arms, and the sculpture's cockroach
legs, except for the fact that the human arms were a blur of
activity. Their sculpture represented the half-human, half-cockroach
protagonist in Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis. At the point
they realized they were headed directly for the rocks and a piling,
they may have realized the true meaning in Kafka's existential
statement, "From a certain point onward there is no longer
any turning back. That is the point that must be reached."
They reached it, collided with it, pushed off and managed to
get around the rest of the loop hugging the pier the whole way.
The crowd at the Canton was
the largest of the day -- from 300 to 500 people. Previous years
have shown this water loop to be the place with the greatest
thrills and spills. Volunteers from the museum passed out smiles
on Popsicle sticks to spectators who barely needed to be reminded
to smile. The sight of all these grownups running around in strange
costumes, escorting phenomenal sculptures, was enough to make
even the hardened Baltimore police escort start to crack a grin.
The Golden Flipper Award was
earned by Louis the Dog. The pilots on this craft had
added a piece of gear this year and hadn't allowed for the extra
weight. So first one end went down, then a pilot leapt to the
other side and so on. The dance continued for only a few seconds,
but seemed an eternity. Lewenz, the filmmaker, was in agony because
Louis' pilots were wearing hundreds of dollars of microphones
and other gadgetry -- fortunately, the hardware, not to mention
the pilots, survived.
Excited by the dog dance, the
crowd began to spontaneously chant "I think I can, I think
I can," as Cirque du Sore Legs, the circus train contraption,
entered the water only to have the wind take the thing away.
The Baltimore Police decided it was too far away from the pier
and took it in tow, an hour penalty. The front of the circus
train, carrying the engineer and the ringmaster, happily chugged
along after the police boat, but then the back end, with twice
as many cars and four people, broke free. It was towed back by
two volunteers in a kayak. For all of that, Cirque du Sore Legs
won the Golden Dinosaur award.
Under the stress of the tow, Cirque du Sore Legs breaks in two.
While the engine is happily chugging along after the police boat,
the back end is towed by two volunteers in a kayak.
As the sculptures exited the
water, officials held them until all were out. This gave the
media a chance to do interviews and volunteers an opportunity
to clean up bags and bags of debris -- typical urban pollution
-- which had washed ashore.
After being released from the
Canton waterfront, the sculptures raced uphill to Patterson Park,
where a sand trap and a mud trap had been built by museum volunteers
in imitation of our race. Most sculptures did fine in
the sand, but the mud was a real challenge. The mud consumed
all but a few, leaving the pit crews brown and slimy.
The Duck was pushed through
by its pit crew, several of whom took the opportunity to have
a mud fight in the pit. After all the sculptures exited the mud,
the racers were delayed again as the police stopped traffic on
the side streets, clearing the way for a breathtaking downhill
ride back into downtown Baltimore. The angle of the streets and
the tall buildings rising into view reminded me once again that
we were not in Humboldt.
I'd heard the last stop before
the celebratory dinner was an obstacle course, and now I found
out why. A waterfront beautification project was underway and
the course went right through the "under construction"
zone. Then the racers all went in and out of the water one more
time and headed back to the museum for the awards ceremony.
Chief Judge Ed also served as
master of ceremonies, and after a few words by both founders,
Hobart and Rebecca, the awards were given, most notably two Aces:
one to Jimbo Hansen from Woodstock, N.Y., for Beaver Bike II;
the other to the pilot of Kinetic Airways, Bob Buerger from Crystal
Lake, Ill. Both of these were simple, stripped down, one-man
machines designed for functionality.
Some things I liked best about
the race didn't have awards. Like the local "Dumpster Diver"
organization getting together some of the most interesting bribes.
They collected bags and toys, books and trinkets to put in them.
Then a volunteer on a bicycle rode around tossing out the bags
to judges and spectators. My bag was just perfect for me. It
had a quote from a famous mountaineer that read, "You can
never conquer the mountain, you can only conquer yourself."
Each of the pilots and crew
that day conquered themselves. And they learned things about
how they feel and perform when they're under pressure. And, perhaps
most importantly, they learned to take it easy and laugh at life's
misfortunes.
The
magic is in the fun
Kinetic sculpture racing is
not just about the work of making and racing a creative machine
through all sorts of torturous conditions. What makes kinetic
sculpture racing magical is that adults have fun. What made the
Baltimore race magical was for a very brief time, the all-too-real
world of life in the frantic East Coast rat race slowed down.
For part of one day, Baltimore was infected by a bit of Humboldt
County's pervasive thaumaturgy -- smiles blossomed, strangers
held conversations. Public happiness is a rare thing East of
the Sierras -- believe me, I know; I'm a native of New York City.
So it was a wonderful thing to see. All too soon, it was back
to the real world of highways, airports and airplanes. We were
in our last plane, on the way to Humboldt, when our flight attendant
told the front half of the plane that she loves flying in and
out of Arcata because "everyone is always smiling."
And I knew I was home in Humboldt
where we are, as Hobart says, "adults having fun so children
want to get older."
If you can see Baltimore's race
someday, do. It's worth it. Their machines are artier, somehow
brighter, pouffier, less engineered and more prone to breakdowns,
which are, of course, half the fun of racing. And if you're anywhere
near Humboldt County on Memorial Day, don't miss the race that
started it all. Bring your kinetic smile. You'll need it.
An ode to Hobart
I've known Hobart Brown only a short time,
but I've known of him for years since kinetic sculpture racing
has been featured in newspapers, magazines, television and films
since I was a kid.
In June 2002, a year after I moved to Ferndale
from Chicago, I saw a newspaper ad announcing a garage sale at
the Kinetic Sculpture Museum. I assumed that, as with every other
garage sale out here, there'd be a line of early birds out to
Fernbridge and everything good would be snapped up by 9:03 a.m.
Instead I was the
only person waiting when Hobart opened the door. He explained
that due to circumstances beyond his control the museum's contents
had to be liquidated. He showed me a collection of old kinetic
machines that needed new homes. When the crowds showed up I became
a sales assistant and had a lot of fun helping to reduce the
load. Several machines were reunited with their creators. Others,
wheel-less and gutless, were foisted off as curiosities. "Put
flowers in it," I told one woman, and a handcrafted PT boat
disappeared.
Hobart was happy to have people pay him
for things that they hauled away, especially since everything
that didn't sell would have to be trashed.
Eventually, we moved out Hobart's largest
pieces, including The People Powered Bus, a bright yellow contraption
that seats 15 and has been raced -- pushed might be more like
it -- in at least 16 kinetic sculpture races; and The Quagmire
Queen, articulated in the middle so that when turned the front
and back ends go in opposite directions. Both weigh over a ton,
but can be pushed by one person. Watching a welder put the Quag's
wheel back together, I mentioned to Hobart that I always wanted
to learn to weld -- he said he would teach me.
At that point our relationship changed
to a full and formal apprenticeship, which began here and continued
in western Australia at the Leeuwin Estates Winery when I traveled
there over Christmas 2002 with the "Glorious Founder."
Hobart has been artist-in-residence at the winery for the past
seven years.
While crippling arthritis has left his
hands too soft to even open a screw-top bottle, when he puts
on a broad-brimmed hat and sunglasses and takes torch in hand,
Hobart is transformed. He has total power, gets in what he calls
the zone and the metal just bends to his will and sticks where
he tells it to stick, cuts where he cuts it, and what emerges
has a soul.
Hobart's metal work in California and in
Australia is very different. Here, he makes things: horses, castles,
boats, planes, railways, water tanks and stagecoaches. Down Under
he makes magic: witches and wizards, Indians and gunslingers,
hot air balloons and flying wheelchair superheroes.
While I was staying with Hobart in Australia,
the organizers of the Perth Kinetic Sculpture Race entertained
us with race videos. Their kinetic race started in 1998. Since
they follow Hobart's directions, it looks remarkably like our
own race: their mad judges, Perth River crossing and the awards
are all very much the same.
The Australian machines are arty, their
frames are strong because some local Rotarians hand build wheelchairs
for the handicapped. There are thrills, spills, frills and hills.
Spectators smile. Pit crews wave and bike. A great time is had
by all. And it's all due to one man.
Being Hobart's apprentice has taught me
more than how to stick metal together. His unusual take on life
shows in even the tiniest things. Don't even think of calling
him "handicapped." He'll tell you, "I'm not handicapped;
I'm a cripple! It hurt a lot getting here and I want full credit
for it." He says the race makes heroes and gives people
the opportunity to cover themselves in glory. Just knowing Hobart
makes me feel glorious.
If you have the opportunity, meet Hobart
Brown. Shake his crippled hand gently, smile and ask a question.
Then watch the brilliant flash of blue and white shine out of
his eyes and engage you. Be prepared to become involved. Few
that meet him emerge unchanged.
-- Ellin Beltz
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FOR MORE
INFORMATION, visit these websites:
Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race Website
The Arcata to Ferndale World Championship
Kinetic Sculpture Race Website
Includes course map, photos
and history
SEE ALSO
these North Coast Journal articles:
May 22, 2003: ART BEAT: AGAINST THE TIDE: HOBART
FIGHTS TO SAVE HIS ZANY RACE
May 20, 1999: COVER STORY: KINETIC COUNTDOWN
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