Art Bus Adventure

Lots of stuff has happened. Snippets:

2011-12-26T17:48:00.001-08:00

Hi All,
We've been stationed in Athens, Georgia for a while making art and music and awaiting our veggie oil conversion. Here's some pictures from our journey.

The island of Dr. Talbot's creepy stuffed animals.

A commonly heard passing comment from Pete while working on ornaments: "I've got to harvest some eyeballs." He was talking about stuffed animals. We think.

A contra dance in Asheville

We went to a concert at Nuci's space, a nonprofit in Athens that provides resources for musicians

We were parked in the lot of a cool alternative bike shop for a while called "Ben's Bikes". That shop is most excellent! Support them!

Some cats hung around the bike shop.

Pete and Emily. They're awesome. They left us last week to continue on their own adventures.

There's a neat collection of people in Athens living in converted school busses and trailers. This is one of them.

We now have a fully functional shower, once you heat up water and put it in the shower bag.

We've been recently staying in a field nearby to our friends. These are their converted vehicles.

This is their hyperactive dog, Ace.

Ari moments after semi-successfully leaping over a ravine's stream bed. The smiling wounded.

The field is adjoined to a farm, so we see funny animal antics out the window each day.

One of the many sweet busses in Athens.

Beard growth visual!

"Cheddar Flavor Pasteurized Process Cheese Food."

After eating the bread-slice menorah, Ari remarked to Pete, "And there you go, that's Chanukah"

The veggie system on our friend's converted ambulance.

Another new friend, Is constructing a trailer house from the ground up. It is so excellent! We visited her and helped sand her wooden bathtub and make patterns for roof flashing. These are some incredibly cool machines that she had in her trailer. "Purwick's Probably Ultra Hand's-On Wood Induced Choice Knower"

Blogging & za.

"Ray from Texas" shotguns 4 slices of his eventual 30, at an All You Can Eat $2.99 CiCi's Pizza buffet in Athens, GA.
A busser added "Stay close to the toilet, because it's going to be a long night"

Monster Ornaments

2011-12-12T21:30:00.001-08:00

Hello all! I have started making monster ornaments out omf recycled materials for the holiday season to try and raise some money for the bus' veggie conversion to be undertaken while here in Athens Georgia.

-Pete

Pre-order your Up-Cycled monster ornaments! $15 plus SnH. Proceeds to go towards the bus veggie conversion. Order this week for holiday delivery! (results will slightly vary as each is a one of a kind work of art. Send me a Facebook message or e-mail at petetalbotvt@gmail.com

New Jersey to Asheville

2011-12-06T08:14:00.001-08:00

We had a rollicking good time in New Jersey with the Grossman clan (my mom'sside of the family.) I'll let Pete tell you about that one. It will be moreinteresting than my report, since I experience the madness every year.

Woah. I haven't seen Ari's grandmother in a long while, and apparently I didn't remember much, because from the second we backed the bus into her parking community's house cluster, to the second we pulled away towards new adventures, she was more hilarious, constantly moving, and more on the ball than most people I know that aren't 90 years old. I could talk forever about the experience, but then we'd never have another post, and we're already behind. Basically, there was tons of amazing food (including chocolate mousse in crystal goblets), lots of fun, laughter, group singing while we played instruments, multi-generational conversations about influential experiences in their lives. We play tested a game in the making by our family friend Brent, and all crashed out after hitting the "Erlbaum wall". All in all, super fun (at times a little hectic, but always interesting).

Pete already told you about how we picked up our friend Andy, ourstay in Baltimore,and picking up two more friends, Pete and Emily.

So we all departed from Baltimore, five aboard, and the travel onthe bus became a party. Our first destination was Harrisonburg, Virginia,where we visited our friend John Doyon, who Pete, Andy and I went to Wihakowiwith. John is a hilarious individual and a fantastic guitarist (www.myspace.com/johndoyon). We laughed a lot,played a little music, and learned the Camel Walk (video coming soon).

The next day we piled into the bus and headed south towards NorthCaroline'. We began to notice that we were definitely in the south. We stoppedat a rest area in southern Virginiawearing T-shirts (this was about December 2.) We also felt the immediacy ofbeing in the mountains, as opposed to having rolling hills on the central Vermont horizon.

A long drive and a gorgeous sunset later, we arrived at Andy’sdad’s house in Alexander, North Carolina, on the outskirts of Asheville. We met Jeff and Sheila, Andy’s dadand step-mom, and Shenny and Ben, Sheila’s daughter and her husband. We allwalked along a ridge past a bunch of cows, to the house. Walking in the door,there was an immediate sensation of being at home and aroma of delicious food.There were guitars, ukuleles and banjos all over the house. We sat down to asteaming shepherd’s pie, then relaxed and played music. We went to sleepsatisfied.

The next day we made a sprawling, delicious breakfast all togetherthat was ready by about lunchtime. We took an exploratory walk through thewoods and around the neighborhood in Alexandria.It's beautiful country down here. We then departed to Warren Wilson College, where a coupledear friends are attending. We went to the Eco-dorm, where our friend Hannahhad some pizza dough ready. There was a cobb (mud and straw) oven outside thedorm with a fire blazing in it. Andy and I have both done semesterprograms with Kroka Expeditions, a wilderness living school in New Hampshire and knowHannah and Oliver through that. It was absolutely wonderful to cook pizza withthem and catch up. After homemade wood-fired pizza, an impromptu old time jambroke out, complete with dancing. Spontaneous old time jams are one of myfavorite things in the world, and so it was great to introduce it to Pete, Peteand Emily. We then went to a student dance showcase, which was incredible. Allthe acts were high quality and varied, not what one might expect of a smallishhippie school. To give a sample, there was break dancing, a dancing/bodypercussion group, and a girl who did aerials and belly dancing at the sametime, all while having a sword balanced on her head!

The next day we went to visit our friend Becca. She and herboyfriend Harrison have landed themselves a great living situation on a hugepiece of land in a cozy house they converted from a chicken coop. They aredoing construction for the Kombucha brewery next-door. There is a neat group ofpeople also living on the land, all doing gardening and other land basedprojects. We helped them by splitting wood and doing chores, then made a big meal.The roasted veggies, pesto, and squash were complimented by home brewed rootbeer and hard apple cider, kombucha, and great company.

We then headed for Asheville.Pete, Pete and Emily explored downtown Asheville,while Becca, Harrison, Andy and I went to a concert of the Carolina ChocolateDrops. The band combined old time, blues, ethnomusicology, minstrel era music,and lots of high spirited fun. Each one played a variety of instruments,including bones, jugs, saw, kazoo, banjo, guitar, fiddle, harmonica, and more.We also saw and danced with Warren Wilson people from the day before at theconcert. The giddiness of the concert hasn’t quite gone away, as of two dayslater.

That's all for now.

A fancy hotel we saw in our walkthrough of Baltimore

John Doyon


Pete and Emily, where the sidewalk ends. Litterally.

John, Ari and Andy

Harrisonburg, VA

Asheville, NC

Jeff and Sheila's house, amidst Appalachia

All these pictures are Asheville area

Pretty much gorgeous

Something dead on the railroad track

Surreal Guacamole

Cat lounging by guitar during Jam session

Baltimore Maryland

2011-12-01T10:18:00.001-08:00

After meeting up with our friend Andy whom we know from Wihakowi (a nature summer camp) and visiting the occupy wall st. movement in NY and attending some meetings in a hall that can only be described as a disco Moria, we headed back to NJ. The next day, yesterday, we took off for Baltimore Maryland to meet up with some friends, Pete and Emily who are also traveling, to have them join our one-vehicle caravan. We stayed the night at a ware-house huge apartmenty amazingly cool space. Ari and Andy slept inside and I stayed in the bus. Then, breakfast!!
This is Zu Zu. Adorable!

Art Bus: High Class

2011-11-26T12:16:00.001-08:00

Note: After this blog, we are going to scale back to writing something approaching weekly so that we can do more and spend less time writing about it. We'll still be communicative, though, just get in touch with us.

11/22, 11:10 PM

As I reach down to lay the bottle full of urine down in the “bathroom” area of the bus, my head hits against the cast iron woodstove. I look around at the impenetrable mess of art supplies, tools, spilled oats, clothes, boxes of food, unwashed bowls, half eaten soggy pasta, and finally up at Pete. A giggle emerges, which rises to a chortle, and soon enough sheets and waves of laughter emerge, engulfing our small piece of post-apocalyptic squalor in the middle of the Wal-Mart parking lot in an unknown New Jersey town.

14 Hours Earlier: 9:10 AM

Alarm goes off. Game plan: Cut out carpet for the entryway of the bus, eat something, finish laundry, clean the house, pack bus, and head out for New Jersey by noon so that we can arrive at Bubbe’s house by 6:00. Bubbe is what we call my 90 year old grandmother. You will hear more about her soon.

10:10 AM

While giving us the rundown of the house cleaning needed before the house is vacated, Judith gestures towards a large pile in the middle of the floor and says, “Make sure to clean up all of the stuff in Pete’s Corner.”

Pete’s Corner is the name of the pile of stuff by the couch that Judith is done with and would like to give us. Included in Pete’s Corner are sweaters, two large pieces of Styrofoam, toothpaste, ties, a household contraption that we can only speculate went on the bathtub, and more.

11:10 AM

The laundry is done and house cleanup has begun.

12:10 PM

“Hi Mom, this is Ari. Just in case you had any illusions that we’d get there on time, we won’t. We’ll leave sometime within the next two hours”

Pete cuts carpet for the entryway of the bus

1:10 PM

“What are we going to do with all the stuff we need to get into the bus?”

2:10 PM

“So, leave in half an hour, OK?”

3:10 PM

Pete: “Just let me send one quick email”

4:10 PM

It’s getting dark. We decide to depart even though we don’t have everything completely secured down.

“On the road again! Wooah woah wo woah, On the road again!”

5:10 PM

The directions said to go on I-84. The GPS hasn’t sent us anywhere near I-84. There are loud crashes every time we go over bumps as things plummet to the floor. We scramble to pick them up.

6:10 PM

Lesson #1: When driving a bus, you need to already know the route down pat before you ever drive it. We miss the turnoff for route 7. The GPS says that we should turn left. We’re on the interstate and there is no way to turn left. By the time we become skeptical of this fact, there is not enough time to change lanes in a big green school bus. In a smaller car, we could shift quickly, but in a bus we are huge and clunky. We get off the highway, turn around, and eventually make it onto route 7. We’re supposed to turn onto I-91, but then we see the “No Commercial Vehicles” sign. It is raining. More things crash to the floor.

7:10 PM

We take a break in the DMV office parking lot at the top of route 7 to navigate. Our bathroom isn’t completely set up and is more a backup for when we can’t go other places. There’s not a good option around, so we pee in bottles.

8:10 PM

We are supposed to turn on the parkway. There is a sign that says “No Trucks”. We think this might include us. We drive around a bit, call my mom. She thinks we can go on the parkway. It is raining. We are hungry. Things crash to the floor. We stop picking them up.

The art desk got disheveled

Lots of things fell

9:10 PM

We turn onto the parkway after my mom’s research says that we can. We are looking for a rest area where we can stay for the night. We don’t see any signs for one. We set the GPS for a Wal-Mart, one of the spots that will let motor homes and RVs (and converted busses) stay the night for free. We pull in and survey the situation.

We are exhausted, but want a hot meal. We boil noodles and put them in our bowls with a slotted spoon, and this leaves them sort of soggy. We throw into our bowls some curry paste from a cardboard box that Pete has had for the past year.

10:10 PM

We take more soggy noodles (the ones that the curry sauce didn’t cover) and put in salt and hot sauce. They are about half eaten when I decide to run through the rain to the Wal-Mart. The night workers eye me warily with their shrunken faces. As I bolt for the restroom, one of them mumbles, “It’s closed.” As much as I protest, they won’t let me use it. And so…

11:10 PM (where this entry started)

Through a combination of inexperience, systems that haven’t been worked out, and dumb luck, we come to this moment, the epitome of squalor. For some reason, it’s about the most fun we’ve had yet. We are so classy.

-Ari

Excursions

2011-11-19T16:50:00.001-08:00

A Neighbor Child delights in the bus

Hello all! Reporting live from our temporary home base of Jamestown, Rhode Island, where we will be for the next few days. We've been here since last Sunday evening, visiting my step mother Judy and step sister Sofia. We've been getting the bus organized and have been focusing on getting the bus blog up and running. We still have work to finish before we can take off for Thanksgiving with Ari's g-ma in NJ. Friday, I gave a tour of the bus to the neighbors and their two sons. They all loved it! The magnetic ceiling car was a big hit. Later that evening, my friend Shawn called me up and told me that her two piece band Super Bonheur was playing in Providence at The Witch Club, an underground show space/artist collective that was unfortunately soon to be vacated as the building had been sold. Ari and I borrowed a car and took off for the show at around 9:30. When we got there we instantly met up with Nick, the other half of SB, Jules (another friend from VT). We all went out for wieners and grilled cheese at a local greasy spatula joint down the street. Awesome. I talked to Eli! One of Nick and Shawn's friends about how he owned and lived in a converted school bus too. At the moment he is in providence, but around February he might be in Tucson, and if I am too, I can give him a lift to the next leg of his journey.

Nick and Shawn of Super Bonheur

We also went on errands with Judy and Sofia to an enormous mall. Coming from Vermont, we felt incredibly fish out of water. The mall had five stories of florescent lights and escalators, four blocks of things to BUY, an attached parking garage, a sea of humans, and had more stores than the entirety of what we call cities in Vermont (also they were all box stores). I'm proud to report that we made it out alive four terrifying hours later, and did not get consumed or suffocated.

The Ginormous Mall

Auuugh!

-Pete

Ari's first underground show:

While I’m honestly not a fan of punk musically, I loved thespirit behind the show. Of the four acts, none were professional musicians, but theywere engaging in the act of creation, and it was clear that they were throwingthemselves fully into it. The show had a wonderful homemade feel. Therewere examples of DIY ingenuity everywhere. Pete’s friends, Nick and Shawn, (whowere infectiously fun during their portion of the show) had gerry-rigged a toymicrophone and a ukulele through lots of distortion. The venue had a kitchenattached, and all the music for sale was all on cassette tapes. My comfort zone is the traditional/contradancing subculture, but I found this new anddifferent subculture to have lots of wonderful elements.

-Ari

An Introduction

2011-11-16T11:34:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the Art Bus. I'm Ari, the first mate.

The bus started in March 2010 when Pete Talbot, the mad genius behind all this madness, purchased an old school bus. He was then compelled to take out the seats, put in floors, a bed, a kitchen, a diner booth, a fireplace and lots of art supplies. Pete is a wonderful artist who makes adorably grotesque monster creations and prints. You should all buy a lot of his art. Check it out at www.petetalbot.com

An example of Pete's art

One fateful day about a month ago, I got a phone call from Pete asking if I wanted to accompany him on the first bus excursion. After about zero seconds of thought, I agreed. I will be accompanying Pete until February.
Now the bus is finally roadworthy, decked out, comfortable, and a great home. This week begins the bus' first road trip.
The plan for the bus is to have it function as a vehicle both literally and metaphorically, for adventures, art creation and selling, music making, making people happy, getting funny looks, and more. We have a over a jillion more ideas (we counted) for projects, and hope in the future to bring in more community involvement. All these ideas may come to pass in the future, but for now we are focusing on organizing the bus, i.e.making the walking space not involve dodging comic books, clothes, and miniature zombies.
This first bus excursion will last until around May. The plan is to head south, then head west along the bottom part of the country, then north, and back to Vermont. In Georgia we will convert the bus to run on waste vegetable oil and make other improvements. I have to bail in February, probably around Louisiana. Pete will continue on, picking up other companions along the way.

Check in daily for updates, photos, videos and stories.

- Ari

Captain Pete Talbot First Mate Ari Erlbaum

Home base...bus.

Machetes and group hugs.

2011-11-15T20:48:00.000-08:00

I built two small pantry storage shelves under each of the booth seats. Beans, peanut butter and pasta!

One of the last nights in Burlington.

Burlington, VT to Montpelier, VT.

(The black dot in the upper part of the photo is a Howl's moving castle key chain.)

Road ready.

My wonderful Montpelier family! Dan, me, Mom and Dylan.

Lucia was still at Middlebury college unfortunately and couldn't be there to say guhbuh.

Not sure what happened, but for some reason I woke up Monday morning with inky black stuff on my chest. Weirdness. I can only assume that it had something to do with my squid-fighting dream crossing over into reality.

View of the bus from my step Mom's house in RI.

Ari, my travel buddy, is the author of "Of Cabages and Kings"

about a machete wielding king. It's awesome, and so is he:

Wakey wakey, eggs and space travel.

2011-11-14T21:19:00.000-08:00

This is the first morning after driving to Rhode Island

to visit my step mom Judy and step sister Sofia.

Whistling Whilst Working

2011-11-14T21:02:00.000-08:00

Here's a video of the inside while on I-89 to Burlington.

This was a solution I used for the back door lock, super simple and easy to instal,

just your basic door deadbolt.

Here's the work area that I used outside of the S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in Burlington, VT

Lots of hours spent cutting boards and plywood...

...while TONS of slugs oozed around on the ground.

My friend Nick and I glued down the 25psi per square inch rigid foam board insulation to the rustoleum-painted metal floor. Then, over that, I glued the 3/4 inch plywood.

Here's the amount of head room that I was just realizing I now have withe the addition of 3 inches of flooring. None.

This is the studio space that I was sharing with my friend Laura. She was amazingly nice and tolerant of my insane amounts of bus junk. Thank you Laura!!!!

Here I am with friends Leah and Callie, cutting and organizing the butternut floorboards that I got from a friends barn-attic. They were gross, old, and smelly from a nice spattering of cat pee, but, again, Laura was incredible and helped me clean all 140ish boards for hours.

Gluing down the boards after being cut to size, then screwing them in place.

Here's the first time I slept in the newly floorboarded bus. I used bubble insulation to block traffic's view of my hiny.

It was fun! That's my foot.

My air mattress and the rest of the boards in the back.

Here's my solution to needing a front curtain, while following the curvature of the ceiling. Split tube, beads, wire, and cloth. It's working so far!

Here's the sander that I ended up using for the majority of the floor. I was using the belt sander in the background...until it lit on fire.

3 hours of sanding.

Me realizing that this was going to take forever.

16 hours later

Wood glue and sawdust makes a wonderful wood filler that I used to plug up the screw holes.

At my friend Karl's suggestion, I used boiled linseed oil to tone the floor. Good one Karl!

I polyurethaned the floor with 4 coats. Unfortunately I used the wrong kind of roller for the last 2 coats and there was tons of fuzzy lintyness all in the top coat. So, waited for it to cure, then I sanded it down and re-applied the poly with the right kind of roller. So much work, but so worth it.

Time to class it up! Amy helped me with picking paint colors and ratios, and Laura helped paint the bus during the week of warm weather we witnessed in late September.

Duke and Mojo, two of the sweetest junkyard dogs you'll ever meet.

I started to move large furniture in once the poly was cured...It's staring to feel like home!

With the perfect advice from my friend Shawn, I started building the loft bed. She and Nick lived in a converted shuttle bus for over a year.

These little burs were EVERYWHERE...all the time.

Cutting boards for bed slats. Thanks college kids!

There's my scooter Riva Mcentire.

I made cardboard basic versions of every major area that I planned to build. This way I was able to tell how much space I'd have, and whether or not I would feel claustrophobic or not.

This is the bathroom mock up.

Here's the real bathroom. The bucket is representative of whatever toilet solution is chosen. So far, it's been public bathrooms, but in case of emergency, I'll need something close to home.

3 attached folding walls temporarily create a large bathroom, or showering space.

Here's the cardboard art desk area.

Tons of plywood and building materials donated to me by my friend Hillary's mom. Thanks! The sink was purchased along with the countertop (hard to see) at Rebuild, the recycled building materials yard on Pine street in Burlington. I couldn't have done it without them!

Installed the sink

I decided the art desk needed storage, the two walls to the right will have 4 shelves

to store lots of my materials.

I boosted the little fainting couch up to provide storage underneath.

Here's the start to the kitchen counter frame.

I installed fire board all around the wood stove, and in the window insert that holds the pipe. Then I added aluminum flashing, then tin spaced an inch off of the wall.

Super toasty!

Here are the first book shelves!

The kitchen. The white things on the ceiling are magnetic spice containers. That's my kitchen stove, a coleman cook stove that works great! 5 bucks at a yard sale. The shelves now have bike tubing to keep the materials from falling off.

Sanding, camping and driving around with friends.

2011-11-07T12:49:00.000-08:00

Working for the weekend.

2011-11-06T09:46:00.000-08:00

I don't even know how much time I spent working on the bus, it all sort of blurred together. Grinding off the bolt heads on the chair floor plates was SO FUN! Tons of sparks!

My Dad. Total goofball.

Upon further inspection of the floor, it was decided that the rubber is where that "kid smell" comes from, and that the plywood was rotten too. Out it goes! Unfortunately, easier said than done.The rubber was fun to pry up, and the plywood wasn't glued down too heavily, but it took a super long time nonetheless.

Good thing we decided to tear it up, that black dust there...used to be plywood. Yikes.

Candy wrappers, old gum and nickles. Kids are gross and weird.

T.C.O.B.

More crazy looking gross old plywood. It looks like a burned out house, so strange.

Clean-ish!

Tetanus anyone?

Tetanus EVERYONE!

While I was hammering the nail remnants through the metal floor, the surrounding dust would form these adorable little perfectly round mounds. Crop circles for mini aliens?

Bus: A retrospective.

2011-11-06T08:53:00.000-08:00

March of '10.

Picked it up in PA with Aubry, and two friends, Ben and Leah (who were currently living on their bus). We drove it back for almost 12 straight hours. Two years of researching, planning, and mainly obsessing were finally becoming reality! 98' International Crown DT466E Turbo Diesel. 36 passenger, 27' long.