The Medz-Mobile

The Medz-Mobile was created in the mid 1990’s at the very birth of the Art car movement. The story goes as follows: I would suspiciously inherit my grandmother’s (medzmama in Armenian) 1968 Volvo 144S from my aunti Aida and uncle Meno. On the day they handed me the title to the car, I looked closely at the original date the car was purchased by my Medzmama and it said July 14, 1968. It was now July 14, 1996 to the day and when I asked if they were aware of this auspicious timing, they said not at all and were just as surprised. The car was exactly 28 years old and in two weeks it would be my 28th birthday.

The car was handed to me in perfect condition, my grandmother was very meticulous. The plastic wraps from the factory to keep the visors clean when delivered to a new customer had not even been removed! When I drove the car, I made sure friends would not even bring food or drink inside as I was so concerned about damaging the car in any way, after all my grandmother had kept it in pristine condition for 28 years. I did not yet have a parking driveway where I lived and sure enough one day when come to the car parked in the street, there was a quarter-sized dent on the back fender. I was devastated and could not believe that I was not able to keep the car without damage for more than a few months.

After a few hours or a day or two, I realized something. I had become so vulnerable to the perfection of the vehicle. I made it stressful for friends to sit in the car, were their feet clean, watch the upholstery. I could not sleep well at night wondering if I would wake up in the morning to discover a new scratch or dent while the park sat vulnerable in the streets of Los Angeles. I realized this was not only an issue for my well-being, I also became aware of this deep interruption with my life forces, my creativity, the source for which all my possibility flows was now becoming heavily constricted, like a water hose being kinked.

I realized I had to transcend what felt like a spell on my mind. I had to break this limitation and return my liberation. To some this may not have relevance however for me at this time in my life, all my endeavors were oriented to do this. I had moved to Los Angeles to begin the deeper work of inward attention, to tap the well of possibility within. And here I was, with my attention focused this way and experiencing a major blockage in the flow. So metaphorically speaking, I took a sledgehammer to it and went wild. I gave myself permission to be free and the process of transformation and empowerment began. What began as an incredibly fragile condition became transformed into a profoundly powerful liberation experience. This is not metaphorical as the dynamic outcomes for which the MedzMobile attracted were nothing short of extraordinary. From opportunities and exhibitions to the joy the car brought to people anywhere I went.

While transforming the car into a functional sculptural painting, I had not taken one thing into consideration. That it would become an attention magnet, after all it was still my car. At this phase of my life, I still had the strong remnants of powerful shyness that was psychological leftovers from my childhood. It took quite some time to get used to the attention the car drew to me. What helped me overcome this contact with people was how The Medz-Mobile drew people to me, there was joy and illumination, it was as if the car healed moments of pain in people’s hearts. As the Medz-Mobile would drive down the street I began to observe people’s faces before they saw me. They would go from a face that looked preoccupied with entangled mental thinking to becoming stunned and awakened out of a negative mental illusory state by this vehicle resonating the energy of an other person’s liberation process, represented by paint and sculptural processes. The true power of art became revealed to me, beyond an intellectual idea to be studied in books and classrooms. The experiential phenomenon of shifting consciousness to new planes of possibility, the Medz-Mobile became the vehicle of such transformations.