Transporting large canvas paintings

When I began to have shows in the Kansas City area in the 1990’s, I realized that a passenger car was not going to work. Many of my canvas pieces were 48X58″ and I just needed something larger than a regular car.  I went online and searched for used cars.  It was somehow easier then (1998) than it seems to be now…but I found a used Safari Van and traded my Honda in for this great Safari van that I could haul t-shirts, paintings, dogs, small furniture….whatever I wanted!  We even drove to a Backer Show in Atlantic City …packed to the gills with t-shirts display stands, signs, suitcases and two dogs.

Two years ago, ….just when Cash for Clunkers finally came online, that van became a prospective clunker when we were on our way to a dog show in Omaha, Nebraska! The Monday after our nervous return to the Kansas City area,  I traded my  usually trusty Safari in and  got a great Honda Insight that gets great gas mileage …and is kind of a computer on wheels.  But, no 48X58″ painting would fit in the Insight! This became a road block for my painting on canvas.  I worked on smaller canvas.  Even though some were successful, I really missed the larger space of a big canvas.

Yesterday we went shopping for a car that  I could put a large painting in…and we found one!  A Toyota Scion!  With tape measure in hand we walked around the Toyota lot inspecting  trunk openings. Now I can paint big paintings again!  It’s a wonderful thing.  I realize that the limitation of the transportation problem also affected my canvas painting.  Sounds silly, but…physical reality can get in the way of creative thinking.