Why is a car company "displaying" at an art show?

Last weekend, I was out at the Beverly Hills "Affair in the Gardens" Art show, I am there with the Group HARK, representing Children's Hospital Los Angeles, where I work as an Artist in Residence.

 HARK (Healing Arts Reaching Kids), is a guild made up of some amazing women who volunteer at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and have seen first hand the difference that Art and Music makes in he lives of children in the hospital. They work diligently to raise money for much needed art materials and music equiptment for the Mark Taper and Johnny Mercer Artists Program, a program that is only partially funded, the rest coming from privated funds and donations.

Year after year, HARK has been a part of the Beverly Hills affair in the garden art show, helping to make a difference in the lives of sick children and their families selling one of a kind artwork done by children at the hospital. They also sell place mats, cards and puppy bandanas with childrens art on them.

 They even sell painted ceramics and original canvas paintings created by the children it is because of these ladies that the art and music program has been able to thrive at the hospital and I am proud to be a part the the program and to be able to help them as a "face" for the program

I arrived at 8 am to help set up the booths and hang art work, as i passed one of the houses on the way from my car to the display area, i was reminded of a joke a comedian had said years ago " you know why all the houses in Beverly hills have two driveway entrances?

Because when you drive in and find out how much they cost, you can drive fight back out again. Once I got to the booth area the food trucks were already lining up and more would be on the way, Beverly hills finest were sporting their eco-friendly, side and of course, coffee was brewing 

  

while setting up, i noticed across the street one of the booths was a big display for the car company Lincoln. My first thought was, why is a car company displaying a car at an art show? i went over a few hours later to find out,  I met with Shari from Grow Marketing

The first question that i asked her was "so where's all the Lincoln art? this being an art show and all" she laughed and began to tell me about Grow was involved with Lincoln booth, they essentially created the concept for and built the display which was impressive to say the least, i consisted of a mock drivers seat where one could learn about Lincoln's new voice response system in their new MKZ hybrid, there was also an opportunity to test drive them and while waiting for the test drive one could lounge in comfortable designer seats  have some ice cold water  in Lincoln brand bottles. so how exactly does a car display fit into an art show? Is the car itself a piece of art? Because the slippery slope principle tells us that eventually banks, washing machine companies and life insurance companies will be setting up shop at art festivals. I spoke with one of the representatives of Lincoln who gave a lot of facts and figures on the hybrid, what i took from it was In the case of Lincoln, it was more an unveiling of their new hybrid, a re-introduction and tie-in to the art community, One art related thing that Lincoln was doing that weekend, was picking one artist from all the exhibitors to award based on use of materials, creativeness etc. which makes sense. 

Personally, no artist that i know would be able to comfortably afford a new Lincoln, they're all in debt, living in a single apt and can only afford PBR's when frequenting the local bars and I doubt that this display would be set up at an art festival in the inner city, but i could be wrong. I decided to give Lincoln the benefit of the doubt and test drove the new Hybrid, boy was it smooth! It handled like a dream! i was very comfortable driving it. I am presumably their target market, a younger, hip, artistic Angelino and to that all i can say is, despite the ride itself, there was no ipod plug to be found anywhere in the car! Just sayin... After my test drive I was given a voucher for a free beer at the beer area and a thumb drive in the shape of a Lincoln car key, now even if i can't afford a Lincoln, i can act as if i do! and to that i say Thank you Lincoln.

part two up soon!