CAR-PIANO
One of six decorated
pianos by locally based
artists, displayed in
various locations
in South Orange NJ
from Aug 23–Oct 4, 2014
The second annual Playin' Around South Orange was presented by PNC Bank
and was brought to you by the South Orange Performing Arts Center,
the Village of South Orange, the South Orange Village Center Alliance, and Seton Hall University.
I thought it would be cool to paint a piano like it was a car. I like to photograph classic cars. The piano has 88 keys, so of course, the racing car number would be 88. From there, the number 88 Car-Piano theme accelerated! There is a whole line of Oldsmobiles that have an 88. The most famous one was America’s first muscle car, the Oldsmobile Rocket 88. This inspired Jackie Brenton’s song, "Rocket 88". It has been considered to be the key song that started rock n’ roll! Bill Haley and the Comets also recorded a version of this song before the better known Rock Around the Clock. You can go Back to the Future to confirm all of this in a flux capacitor equipped Delorean!
Fast forward back to 2014, when Linda Beard, Director of Community Engagement at SOPAC, showed me the player piano, I thought it couldn’t be more perfect! It sat there on wheels (no tires), and the back soundboard resembled the car front chrome grill. It had its own brake and gas pedals, (tredies, for pumping the player piano). It was a restoration of sorts! The Car-Piano needed some factory standards: headlights, hood ornaments, and a radio stuck on AM station 88. For fun, I added a few aftermarket parts and accessories: an 88-track tape player complete with a set list of 88 car related songs and pink fuzzy dice for the working rear view mirror. Obviously, you can’t drive this Car-Piano without a licence plate; so I crafted a mock 1988, cream colored, metal vanity, NJ Plate, using the plate number Liberace had on his Rolls Royce: 88KEYS.
While “restoring” this Car-Piano project, I thought, about my Dad teaching me to drive his Oldsmobile and my Great Uncle’s player piano in his lake cabin.
