Carrie Reichardt

The Tiki Love Truck - a mobile mosaic mausoleum.

The Tiki Love Truck was commissioned by Walk the Plank for the first ever art car parade, held in Manchester on 8th Sept 2007. It won first prize in the best decorated category.
It was conceived and designed by Carrie Reichardt aka The Baroness and Mr Spunky, and made by The Treatment Rooms crew.
Mark Wydler provided technical expertise and constructed the head piece that sits on the truck.
Lori Bell designed and decorated the entire inside cabin.

During the making of this truck, Carrie Reichardt got a letter to inform her that her friend John Joe ‘Ash’ Amador was going to be executed by the State of Texas in a few months time. She decided to dedicate the truck in memory of her friend.
The week before the art car parade she went to visit Ash and bear witness to his execution. Nick Reynolds (son of Bruce Reynolds and harmonica player in Alabama 3) came over to Texas to join her. Nick Reynolds is also a highly regarded sculptor and is an expert on the history and making of death masks.
Texas is the only state in the USA, where you can legally move a dead person on producing your own body bag. So straight after the execution the family collected Ash’s body and took him to a cabin in some local woods so that Nick could make a death mask of him. Nick also made a cast of his arm where the lethal injection was administered.
This ritualistic process took around 2 hours and was filmed in its entirety. A powerful documentary is currently in production charting this unqiue experience.

Ten days after Ash’s execution, the Tiki Love Truck made its way through the streets of Manchester with thousands of spectators watching.
His death mask takes pride of place on the top of this truck and inside the truck is a small shrine for Ash that includes his actual blood, hair and nails.

The Tiki Love Truck has since toured the country and performed at many various shows and exhibitions. This includes;

Illuminated Art Car Parade – Blackpool 2007
Glowmobile Art Car Parade – Gateshead 2007
‘402’ Vibe Bar – London
Glowmobile Art Car Parade – Gateshead 2008
Trash City - Glastonbury 2009
Camp Bestival – Lulworth 2009
Bestival – Isle Of Wight 2009
Illumniated Art Car Parade - Manchester 2009
Edinburgh's Christmas Art Car Parade - Edinburgh 2009

How we made it

We started with a Nissan pick up truck. The design was drawn onto separate brown paper templates. The mosaics were made using the indirect method. This means the glass tiles were temporarily fixed upside down using gum glue to the brown paper. They were then stuck onto the truck using Adhere IRS 2125 flexible epoxy adhesive. This was kindly donated by Intertonics. www.intertronics.co.uk Each section had to be held in place with tape as the adhesive set. We used this resin as it is flexible, has high adhesion strength and can operate up to temperaturs of up to 150c. Once stuck the brown paper was removed and the car was grouted with a two part epoxy grout that was donated by Weber. www.netweber.co.uk

It took a team of about 5 artist’s 3 months to complete.