Mud Flap Girl (Highway Project), photograph, 2007


During 2006-2007 my life-long obsession with the ‘Mud Flap Girl’ transformed into an art project and blog. I created Mud Flap Grrl blog specifically to track the journey of a set of mud-flaps that I designed as a response to pop culture’s ‘Mud Flap Girl' (and to write about other musing regarding the representation of the female nude in pop culture). Galerie SAW Gallery included this blog, and a set of my mud-flaps in a group exhibition called Culture Crash: Art and the Automobile. My Mud Flap Girl drawings, on the other hand, were exhibited with the Rider Project in New York City, as a part of a mobile art gallery that was housed in a half-ton truck.

Hi Mud Flappers:
"The Highway Project", a live performance piece for Galerie SAW Gallery (Ottawa), is now in entering its fourth month. Lately I've been asking the truck driver, Paul, to send any photos or strange bits of information about life on the road. This is what he sent me last week:
...the truck stop I was at a couple of days ago had a vending machine for live bait! I've never seen anything like it before.
Yummy worms for lunch!

Hello Mud Flap Lovers:

Here is the latest email from the truck driver:

The last couple weeks have been fairly busy; the week before last I was off a couple days because the box of my truck had sprung a leak so had to be sealed. I still managed to get a couple runs to the United States and back. I haven't had any comments (about the mud flaps) but that doesn't necessarily mean that people aren't talking about them. I don't use a CB in my truck so no one noticing them on the road would be able to ask me about them, and normally I am only in a truck stop long enough to sleep, and maybe get something to eat. It's a major "no-no" to disturb a driver while he's sleeping ! Anyone noticing them may not have a chance to talk to me about them.

This week the mud flaps and I started out with a trip down to the Cincinnati area with the return load coming from just across the river in Kentucky, and had a second trip to Fort Wayne Indiana with a return trip from Sidney Ohio. I've been watching for anything picture-worthy, but it's been pretty boring. I haven't had trips anywhere near any of the memorable signs that I know of. Hopefully I will have more exciting news next time.

Hey, nice caps!

Limited addition, Mud Flap Girl Skeleton t-shirts now available. $30.00.

email: mudflapg@gmail.com

This is a photo of the mud flap used in the project. As you can see it glows in the dark. I imagine this looks pretty good on the highways at night.

All in all I have had positive feedback about the Mud Flap Girl Highway Project; the exhibition opening night (at Galerie SAW Gallery) was a success; it was the same night as the Governal General awards dinner party at Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean's house. (And I do think she is right and honourable.) A number of people showed up, from the dinner party, to the exhibition opening around 11:00 PM in full gowns and tuxedos. I am also very happy to have the experience of working with national and international artists.

In the last couple of weeks the mud flaps have travelled mainly in the Midwest and northeastern United States. As the trucker explains:

I brought a load down to a little place called Fonda,NY, and got a return load from Connecticut; last week was a more normal week, a trip to Flint, MI, and a trip down to Dayton, OH". It certainly is an interesting process to insert these mud flaps on to the highways and other trucking locations.

Stay tuned for more adventures.