Hack work

Young Chang

Ricky Menace drives taxis during the day and paints animal skulls at

night.

He’ll hang a goat skull on the walls of the AAA Electra Open Forum

Co-op Art Museum & Gallery in Newport Beach Sunday.

Menace and other artists will take part in “Taxi Cab Art,” an exhibit

in which the only important qualification to participate is that you

either are, or have been, a cab driver. You don’t even need a valid hack

driver’s permit.

There are three more small rules: The art can’t be burning, have an

overwhelming odor or contain living animals.

“Rules come about because people mess up,” said Richard Johnson, the

museum’s founder and curator.

Johnson, a cabdriver for West Coast Taxicab 11 years ago, has seen

disasters in the past with art incorporating the banned elements. The

exhibit is, in part, his way of paying back all the “cabbies” he knows

who are artists.

Also when Johnson drove, he said, he wished there was a place to

showcase his works.

American Taxi, based in Santa Ana, helps sponsor the gallery. Lee

Meszaros, the company’s vice president, said he has seen musicians,

painters, actors and other aspiring creative types drive cabs. They like

the job because they can make their own hours and have time for their

art, he said.

The stereotype of the cab driver who sculpts/paints/creates by night

is quite alive in American culture. This may be why, with such films as

“Night on Earth” and television series including “Taxi” and HBO-TV’s

“Taxi Cab Confessions,” cabdrivers have become the subject of various art

media.

Even the bosses are part of the tradition. Rick Schorling, owner of

American Taxi, will display his inked doodles Sunday. They’re black and

white on 8.5-inch by 11-inch pieces of paper. He draws them when he’s on

the phone and placed on hold.

“It’s not what you would call art, but Richard [Johnson] seems to

think someone might enjoy it,” Schorling said.

Johnson’s contribution to the show will be a door from his former cab

ripped off its hinges and leaning against a black-cloth wall.

The curator said he didn’t take much care about where or how to place

the door. But he accompanied it with three photos taken by Adrienne

Sudweeks, his girlfriend who was murdered three years ago. The case is

still open.

Sudweeks’ trio of photos are black and white. The one on the left

shows an anonymous woman in the backseat of Johnson’s cab. The woman,

with droopy eyes and droopy hair, is all but passed out. The middle photo

shows the same passenger looking dazed. In the one on the right, she has

passed out.

The museum/gallery was named after Sudweeks, said Johnson. Her pen

name, “Electra,” appears on the bottom of her photos. The “AAA” stands

for “any art accepted.” An added bonus is that this puts the gallery at

the top of the phone book listing.

It’s a customized museum, displaying local artists’ works that you

have to look at twice to know what you’re looking at.

One of Johnson’s pieces, titled “The Peppermint Patty Hearst Box,” is

a mixed-media diorama that incorporates a Jesus-themed night light, Vogue

magazine clippings and garbage.

Johnson said he once made a box for his mom, and she asked him why he

couldn’t just paint flowers. She wouldn’t accept the gift.

Menace, who has painted images on cow, goat and horse skulls, but not

on human ones, said people have wondered about his art form and what it

means. He simply prefers the craniums to ordinary canvasses.

“It’s actually taking a death and making it pretty,” Menace added.

FYI

* WHAT: Opening of “Taxi Cab Art”

* WHEN: 6 p.m. Sunday

* WHERE: AAA Electra Open Forum Co-op Art Museum & Gallery, 4320

Campus Drive, Suite 110, Newport Beach

* COST: $1

* CALL: (949) 833-7718