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DALLAS — The bicycles in the Verve Vertu art studio looked dull last week after the artists spray painted them with gray primer.
Ah, but that was just the beginning.
“I’m gonna dude it up,” artist Mike Hungarter, 37, of Kingston, said as he assembled some of the colorful materials that will transform one of those bikes into an advertisement for Posh restaurant of Scranton.
The plan for the Posh bicycle includes wheels wrapped with batik, a seat covered in tapestry and an overall elegant look, said art instructor Gwen Harleman, who is guiding the special-needs artists of Verve Vertu in their latest undertaking, a plan to decorate 10 bicycles so they will become eye-catching, portable advertisements for 10 area businesses.
“It’s called ‘guerrilla marketing,’” Harleman said. “It’s an avant-garde way to get your message out.”
“This is going to be really pretty,” said artist Tracey Tribendis, 46, of Wilkes-Barre, who was standing near a bicycle that may eventually have prescription labels incorporated into its new design along with a basket to emphasize that Fino’s Pharmacy delivers.
Some of the 10 bikes are still available for businesses or organizations to sponsor, Harleman said.
When they are decorated, they will be on display during a Nov. 17 reception at the Verve Vertu studio on Main Street in Dallas and then will embark on a “Tour D’Amour” as they become a traveling exhibit.
Marywood University student Loriah Webby, who suggested the marketing project to Harleman and is writing a master’s thesis about it, came up with the name, which is reminiscent of the Tour D’France cycling race.
Not that anyone will be riding these bikes.
“They’re for decoration,” said Hungarter, who does enjoy riding a regular, un-decorated bicycle near his home. “I ride through Kingston at 6 o’clock and listen to all the chimes,” he said.
The “Tour D’Amour” bike art will coincide with another Verve Vertu exhibit called “Angels Among Us and Other Magical Things.”
For that display, artists have been crafting angels from such items as vintage buttons, paper clay and shoe laces.
A glance at some of their efforts shows that crowning a mannequin head with a bird-studded wreath can suggest a forest sprite, and that handles from an old dresser drawer can be used as wings, as can pieces of burlap.
“We repurpose a lot of material,” Harleman said, pointing out that the “canvases” on which some artists had painted portraits of angels were old table legs.
“I think it’s amazing. It’s inspirational,” Webby said during a visit to the studio. “I could never create some of the things they create.”
