Dirt Car Art

Art on the windscreen of an unwashed car is dirty car art, an art form introduced by Scott Wade, a resident of San Marcos, Texas. Scott Wade never washes his cars but instead uses the windscreen covered with grime to recreate da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, van Gogh's "The Starry Night", Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" or sometimes just a portrait on request. Wade held his first dirty car art show at the Courtyard Gallery in Cuero Texas featuring three large photographs of his work. Scott Wade, 48, is professionally a graphical user interface designer with a degree in art from Texas University.

Scott always dabbled at drawing pictures on dirty windows using his fingers but later discovered frayed ends of a popsicle stick to carve through dirt and reveal the dark interiors of the car. He added more shades of gray to his portraits using fan brushes with varying pressure. Ideally, his canvas of dirt takes about a week to form the optimum layer, but there are times where he uses almond oil to coat the glass and blow dust onto its surface. In the event that the dust does not naturally accumulate and develop a layer thick enough to work on, then Wade rubs the window with almond oil and then blows dust with a blow dryer creating a layer artificially.

Till date, Wade has 50 pieces to his credit which include portraits, cartoons and some famous paintings. His fans have often suggested that he offer up his services for funerals using ashes of the deceased to create their very own portraits. However he has never experimented on this aspect of his art. The only testimony of his art is through the photographs that he preserves. He rarely washes away his work from the wind screen allowing either nature to fade away the picture or even the accidental stroke of the windscreen wiper to erase the entire image. Wade accepts either way of erasure with equal élan. He believes that through his transient art form he has learnt philosophy of life. He compares his artwork to artists who perform and leave the stage or to the wildflowers where beauty seldom diminishes despite their wilting or dying away. Similarly, while his art exists, it provides profound joy to the eyes of the beholder. All fruits of labor are temporary and so are the artistic exploits of ‘dirty car art’. The originality of his art form, his philosophy and his talent has found him admirers around the globe.