The story of Flying Beetle By Judith Wray
Many years ago (in a kingdom by the sea) a handsome Hungarian prince gave half a Volkswagen to a group of artists. They accepted it gratefully. This was in the year 1999. To begin with, they produced 300 black and white photocopies of the Volkswagen and distributed the copies to 4 schools in New Jersey to be colored.
267 copies returned, not all were made by children. By then the Volkswagen had encouraged the growth of a tributary project “The Traveling Magnetic show”. During the next two years the colored copies were made into magnets stuck to our fire engine red van, thus surprising people at traffic lights and curves in the road. Look Mom! There is the traveling magnetic show, and there is mine on the side of the van!
That is what I wanted. That made my day! To bring art out into the street.
But the story does not end there … The natural space for these small magnetic pieces of art are the doors of refrigerators. So we searched and found many refrigerator doors quickly! These doors with the magnets on them were taken to Lincoln Center’s Cork Gallery, New York City as part of the HUB-MAG Show which included a large collection of painted hubcaps from artists and community. The youngest person submiting a painted hubcap was 4 yr old. The oldest was a 92 yr sister in Canada! The furthest – France!
