Hobart Brown, 2003 at his Ferndale Studio. Photo by Ken Mierzwa
Hobart Ray Brown - (February 27, 1934 - November 7, 2007) American sculptor and the Glorious Founder of the Kinetic Sculpture Race.
A Fabulous Life - in Pictures
Hobart Brown was born in Hess, Oklahoma to a fifteen-year-old mother
who migrated across country to California on the back of her husband's
motorcycle. Hobart described it as his classic Okie experience,
mirroring the great migration so poignantly captured in John
Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and other stories of the Dust Bowl
years.
Hobart went to High School in Los Angeles a couple of classes
after Marilyn Monroe, whom he remembered by her real name and describes
as "a quiet, plain little thing - not at all what she became later."
Hobart resting in a chair to which Australian race organizer Geoff Russell had tied a pair of silver lame chicken wings. Photo by Ken Mierzwa
After a stint as an airplane mechanic, where he
learned welding, and time spent running hot rods with his friends on
local empty roads, he decided in 1959 to become an artist and moved to
Humboldt County, California. Arriving in 1962, he immediately opened
the first of several Hobart Galleries; the first in Eureka, California,
others in Trinidad and finally Ferndale, California.
Hobart Brown and
Bob Brown, 1969
In 1969, Hobart started the Kinetic Sculpture Race, almost
by accident when he modified his son, Justin's, tricycle to a
five-wheeled, decorated "Pentacycle" and another local artist and
gallery owner, Jack Mays, challenged him to a race down Main Street on
Mother's Day.
Raceday came, so did eight other challengers. Neither Hobart
nor Jack won the race, that honor goes to Bob Brown (no relation)
piloting his Kinetic Turtle.
Hobart Brown and Bob Brown, 1969
In 1975, local sculptor Stan Bennett wrote a book
about Kinetic Sculpture Racing. In 2006, he kindly gave me permission
to reprint the first third of "Crazy Contraptions: Online
as it contains the earliest history of the race and lots more pictures there - including the earliest kinetic racers. Click here for a list of the earliest kinetic sculpture race pilots and their vehicle names.
Kinetic Sculpture Races spread all over the U.S., there was one in
Poland in the late 1990s, a couple in Idaho which unfortunately ceased
as did one in Western Australia after running for several years.
However, there is a strong kinetic circuit, anchored by the Kinetic
Grand Championship in Humboldt County, California where 2007 was the
39th running - and Hobart's last race. Unlike its earliest days, the
race is no longer just down the street. It now is the longest human
powered sculpture race in the world. The course covers approximately 40
miles of sand, water, pavement, hills, more water, roads and freeways
from Arcata to Ferndale.
This
photo shows Hobart sitting outside his Ferndale Gallery after The Cape
Mendocino Earthquakes of April 25-26, 1992 devastated the building and
scattered the contents of the Galleries, his residence and museum. The
signs he spray painted on the building show his "got lemons, make
lemonade" attitude and impish sense of good humor. They read from top
to bottom
"We were going to remodel anyway,"
"What a Day" and, unfortunately
"Kitty Come Home!"
Due to an amazing series of coincidences -
including a decision-makers luncheon that left several key people under
a table in Eureka with a preservationist from Ferndale - FEMA came
through for Humboldt County and the Galleries were repaired to their
current condition during 1993 although some aspects of the damage were
so "artistic" they were incorporated wholesale into the decorating
scheme. Hobart often described the interior design - including secret
rooms and hidden passegeways, cat doors and unusual history - of his
house as "Okie Baroque."
In 1996, the Port Townsend KSR organizers, frustrated with what
they perceived as a greedy management style made a self-confessed
attempt to drown the Glorious Founder during their event.
Courtesy of http://www.ebbc.org Meanwhile his fans were hauling him down Main Street, Ferndale as part of their festivities.
A model of the Pentacycle that started it all. It has - count 'em - FIVE wheels!
Trivia! In 1997, Kinetic Sculpture Racer Rabid Aqua Bat won The Dr. Lawrence J. Peter Principle Golden Dinosaur Award for Outstanding Incompetence.
The award continues to be awarded to the first sculpture to utterly -
but creatively - break down after leaving Arcata Plaza. Dr. Peter was a
friend of Hobart's, attending and being involved in race management
during the five years before his own death. Sources: http://www.rversonline.org/Postcards7.html and WikiPedia - LJ Peter entry.
Hobart at the WEB Fashion Show, Curley's Restaurant, Ferndale June 28, 2003. Photo by Ken Mierzwa
Warm winters, Cool summers
As Hobart got older, his severe case of rheumatoid arthritis seemed to
calm down if he got into a warm climate. He visited his mother in Palm
Springs, California a lot when it first started; later he migrated to
Western Australia every northern hemisphere winter. After an initial
trip down under with two friends where he had multiple adventures, he
secured a position as "artist-in-residence" at Happ's Winery in
Margaret River, Western Australia and later in the same role at the
prestigious Leeuwin Wine Estates in the same area.
In both places he was essentially "on display," and made a
part of the winery tours, amusing visitors and their kids with both his
welding and his pithy "American sense of humor."
In his spare time, he got a Western Australia race going with the help
of the Mount Lawley Rotary Club of Perth, and for several years, the
event benefited the Princess Margaret Children's Hospital until the
loss of a major sponsorship caused it to fold.
Hobart and Ellin walking at Leeuwin 2002. Photo by Ken Mierzwa. Hobart Brown and Jack Mays share a laugh at Poppa Joe's, 2004. Photo by Ellin Beltz
Hobart looks around his studio in 2005. Photo by Christian Hellmers
Back home in Ferndale then became almost a vacation from his
full time jobs in Australia. In both hemispheres, hee worked, taught
others to weld, and made new plans every day - some good, some so off
the edge, his friends would cringe when he said "I have an idea..."
Hobart planned his annual migration around Kinetic Sculpture
Races in Australia, Baltimore and the Great Arcata to Ferndale race,
the one that started it all, in Humboldt County California.
Hobart teaching LVarado to weld, 2004, Main Street Studio. Photo by Ellin Beltz
Hobart in his first wheelchair, 2004 American Visionary Art Museum Fun House Mirrors. Photo by Ellin Beltz
Hobart and Queen Monica, 2004 at Arcata Plaza. Photographer Unknown.
Hobart and Queen Harmony, 2006 at Arcata Plaza.
Hobart at the 2004 Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race. Photo by Ellin Beltz
Hobart and Queen Emma at the start of his last Kinetic Sculpture Race, 2007. Photographer unknown.
The Race He Started Inspires the Creativity of Others.
Hobart never won his own race! Here a group of his companion pilots push the one ton People Powered Bus
across the Finish Line one last time in 2005. This time, though, they'd
only pushed it from a nearby yard - not all 40 miles from Arcata!
4th of July, Ferndale, CA
L-R: Queen Shaye (2005), Queen Emma (2007), Glroious Founder Hobart
Brown and Glorious Challenger Jack Mays at the Ferndale 4th of July
Parade, 2007. Photo by Ken Mierzwa
Hobart loved flags, he was patriotic to the core and flew
them from every kinetic racer; saluting flags we drove by with one
crooked hand over his heart. Thus it was particularly special for him
to be asked to be the Victorian Village of Ferndale's Grand Marshall of
their Old-Fashioned Fourth of July Parade, a nearly hour long
extravaganza of flags, floats, groups, bands, theater troups, fire
trucks and about 100 antique horseless carriages.
He was
carefully dressed and bundled up, but still not able to say much since
his stroke in late May. He tucked an American Flag into his hat band
and hid the tears in his eyes behind a pair of welding sunglasses as
old friend and Glorious Challenger Jack Mays drove him at the head of
his very own parade all the way through Ferndale, turning the red
convertable around at the end so Hobart could see all the floats in
review. He cried the whole time.
Hobart Brown, July 4, 2007
After a while of hospice care, although he said he
was really enjoying the never-ending parade of pretty women who arrived
to comfort him, he decided "Not to die for a while," and ended his
hospice care. He entered St. Luke's Nursing Home in Fortuna, joking
that it was his Australia - warm, nice people, and three square meals a
day. At the end of October, his doctor took Hobart to see the Arcata
Kinetic Lab Haunted House before Halloween. Hobart looked up from his
wheelchair and told Dr. Jutila, "I'm so glad I can be useful to you!"
The good Doctor asked Hobart, "How?" and Hobart replied, "Cutting into
lines," as he and the Doctor were whisked into the Haunted House past
people who had been waiting for hours and who were cheering him on.
Home
Hobart resting in a chair to which Australian race organizer Geoff Russell had tied a pair of silver lame chicken wings. Photo by Ken Mierzwa
This
photo shows Hobart sitting outside his Ferndale Gallery after The Cape
Mendocino Earthquakes of April 25-26, 1992 devastated the building and
scattered the contents of the Galleries, his residence and museum. The
signs he spray painted on the building show his "got lemons, make
lemonade" attitude and impish sense of good humor. They read from top
to bottom 
