Keller's fanciful car art celebrates American icons  11/20/02

    BARNETT WRIGHT News staff writer

    When some of her friends got facelifts, Armor Keller decided her car needed one too. "My 1980 Toyota was sitting in the garage and it was not being used," said the Vestavia Hills artist. "I decided to turn it into a piece of kinetic rolling sculpture. So I started gold leafing it." Gold leafing included pasting 1,000 sheets of gold leaf paper on the car. After months of gluing on the sheets, Keller renamed her car "The Magic City Golden Transit" and surprised friends. "One day I just rolled it out and shocked everybody I knew," she said. "This was in Birmingham in 1989."

   Since then, Keller has added a mirror mosaic on the outside, and on the inside old pieces of jewelry, Barbie doll shoes and gold coins, making what a fellow artist described as an "extravaganza of visual delight." "It's mind boggling because she's taking ordinary objects and transforming them into the extraordinary," said Stacey Taylor, owner of the Lawler and Taylor Art Gallery in Vestavia Hills. Keller's art car has been featured at the International Motor Sports Hall of Fame in Talladega and in calendars, books and a documentary.

    The art car also led to Keller's most prized creation: A collection of miniature automobiles that she calls "Dream Cars." Her Dream Cars will be on display during an exhibition at the Kentuck Museum in Northport beginning Jan. 2. She has created 18 of the tiny cars so far and sold four and calls them Dream Cars because "they're from my imagination and I can just dream about what it would be like to drive them." Her Dream Car collection includes one called "Wings and Fins," a takeoff on the old 1950s cars with big fenders. Another is a model of a Rolls Royce with a decanter and four little glasses. "The roof comes up and it's a music box," she explained. "It has a lot of wonderful old 1950s jewelry on it. It's all about glamour and glitz." Another is "Freedom of the Road," which is about "being macho and getting in your big old car and going down the road," said Keller. "And, of course, it has a Miss Liberty. It's all about America."

    Why the fascination with cars? Cars are an iconic part of American culture and affect everyone in one way or another, said Keller, who has redesigned 20 hubcaps filled with glass shards and computer parts into works of art. "The real question is, am I making fun of the automobile or am I glorifying it?" posed Keller. "I don't know the answer to that. I have not decided yet because the answer is yes and no to each question." Taylor said the art is done in a thought-provoking way. "I think she's made a wonderful commentary on how we as Americans idolize our cars," said Taylor. "And, she's done it in a way of not making fun of us."

    Keller has a visual arts degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She attended the University of Guam in the Mariana Islands and Huntingdon College in Montgomery. She said her travels have contributed to her creative growth. "I'm always taking a risk," she said. "It's no fun unless you're taking a risk. The masters have all done it before and you've got to find something that's going to represent you, your place, your time."

   How did she come to be named Armor Keller? She was Helen Armor before she married Ronald Keller 44 years ago. "You cannot be a visual artist and be named Helen Keller," she said.

         The Birmingham News. 11/20/02