Art Car Parade hits dead end in 2009

Culture Candy, the umbrella organization for arts and artists throughout the city, has cancelled its fourth-annual Art Car Parade, planned for May 2, because of a resignation and lack of corporate sponsorship.

“I gave someone the keys to my Art Car Parade and when I got it back, there was no gas, the tires were bare, and the back seat was full of empty beer cans and cigarette butts,” Culture Candy founder and Chairman Bill Kelley wrote Sunday to dozens of out-of-state art car owners who each year participate in the Baton Rouge parade. “We’re going to take some time off this year and clear ‘er up for next year.”

Aimee Schultz, the project director for this year’s parade, quit via e-mail a day before the deadline to apply for an Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge grant, which mostly funds the parade. Culture Candy checks its e-mail once a week, “so we didn’t know she quit until it was too late. If I had known beforehand, I could’ve still done something about it,” Kelley said.

The parade also lost its major corporate sponsor, All-Star Automotive, and other community sponsors are not in the financial place they were previously, according to Culture Candy Executive Director Erin Rolfs.

Culture Candy insiders tried really hard to find alternatives to a full-blown parade, such as downsizing the event to just a showcase, according to Rolfs, but Kelley didn’t want people coming to town for an event that was put together half-way. “He was in a tough position,” Rolfs said. “Aimee didn’t understand what an undertaking it was to organize an art car parade. It’s really hard and takes a lot of time.”

225 sent an e-mail to Schultz inquiring about the parade and resignation, but the e-mail was not returned as of press time.

Kelley said postponing the parade to the fall is a possibility, but that “the cool thing about May 2 is the Houston parade is the following weekend, so we get a lot of the huge, well-known, fine vehicles such as the telephone car that swing through Baton Rouge en route to Houston. Besides a lot of these art cars are at Burning Man in the fall,” Kelley explained.

It costs at least $6,000 to put together a “bare bones” Art Car Parade, which usually kicks off FestForAll, according to Kelly. “I’d like to see Art Car Parade keep happening, but it might fade into the past as we find new ways to be fun and more creative,” Kelley said.