I certainly am a fickle bitch. I've fallen in love three times this past season. First the love affair with my garden woodchuck was rekindled, big time! Then I fell for a young skunk residing in my backyard. I can't tell you how many hours I spent waiting for that animal to appear, so that I could take photos of it. And now I've fallen in love with a truck! So . . . have you ever fallen for a truck? When I saw this one parked on my street the other day I was completely smitten. I was on my way to make my weekly pickup from Police Headquarters of the crime stats, for the articles I write in The West End NEWS.
I was driving down the hill at the time and I didn't have my camera with me. I could only hope the vehicle would be there when I returned, which was only going to be a matter of minutes.
The truck was still there when I got back. I rushed into the house, grabbed my camera, and went out to take some photos. I started at the rear, then did the driver's side, the hood, and the passenger side. That side was parked next to the curb so I wasn't able to get a full view of it that day. No matter. I did it in sections.
Why don't you take a little stroll around the truck with me? It's like taking a tour of a piece of sculpture. Here's the driver's side.
I don't know who this gray creature is, but he has a lot of appeal to me. Looks like he could be a bit vicious if he had to, although his teeth aren't really mean looking. This yellow bug is neat also. And I do like yellow!
This blue animal is interesting. 
I have no idea whether he's a cartoon character that's well known, or if he's just been placed on the truck by someone who created the design at the spur of the moment. He has lots of personality, regardless of how he came about.
One of the stencil images that's repeated in many locations on the truck is the haunting face of Anne Frank, done in black and white.
I recognized Frank's face immediately; it gave me chills. It's a beautiful rendition of her likeness. Here are some of the images on the passenger side of this well-decorated vehicle.
I have no idea who this trio is, but they've been placed on the truck in great style.
Here's another unknown face that's very well done. 
If he's anyone you're familiar with, please let me know. The hood had its own story to tell. 
There's not much room left for any other decorations. I enjoyed seeing this truck parked across the street, but I'm not sure I'd like to be traveling next to it or behind it in traffic. It could be a bit disconcerting. At least it would be for me, because I'd want to check out all the art on it, and that's not something you can easily do while driving.
I had great fun uploading my photographs that Friday evening. And I kept thinking about this truck, wondering who owned it, and why Anne Frank's face was so prominent on it.
When I got up Saturday morning the truck was still there. I decided which house this unknown person from Vermont might be visiting. At a decent hour I marched across the street, on a quest to find the truck's owner. I hit it right. The first house I went to, which I knew had several young people living in it, was the right one.
Timothy Findlen greeted me, and after stating my purpose, he said: "Oh, that's my friend Abby's truck. She'll be out in a minute."
When Abby Banks entered the room, my first words to her were: "I love your truck." We bonded immediately. The vivacious 29-year-old artist/photographer couldn't have been more welcoming. She began answering my questions about her "Stencil Truck," as she refers to it, as though I had every right to barge into her friend's apartment on a Saturday morning and begin grilling her about her "wheels."
Banks is a member of The Tinder Box, a collection of artists and musicians renting studio space in Brattleboro, Vermont, where they host shows and visiting bands perform. She's originally from Claremont, California, but went to Vermont's Goddard College and is still friendly with many of those college chums, with Timothy Findlen being one of those.
When I asked about the Anne Frank image all over the truck, Banks said "There's a teenage girl named Natasha, who's very involved with The Tinder Box. She's the one who created that stencil." Natasha is a big fan of Neutral Milk Hotel, whose lead Jeff Mangum was emotionally overwhelmed after reading The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. He dedicated the album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea to her. Natasha made the stencil because of this and it's one that Banks is fond of.
If I'd never met Abby Banks, I wouldn't have known that on the roof of the wonderful 1997 Ford Ranger XLT, there's a giraffe stencil. It never would have occurred to me to even ask.
Banks worked for the writer David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest, but decided she wanted to pursue a career in art, which was her major. She prepared to leave California with no destination in mind, to take a trip of unknown length, and ended up in Asheville, North Carolina. She remained there five or six months, living in a shack on a friend's land. "I started collecting stencils there." Herman Munster was the first art to be placed on the red truck.
Asheville was "too distracting; there was so much going on." Banks decided to leave and head for Brattleboro, where she had some college friends. It was a good choice.
Abby first became aware of the term "punk house" when she was a teenager. "I was very punk; that was my thing. I was being a punk, using the meaning in a larger sense, beyond music." After visiting a friend living in a punk house in San Pedro, California, Abby decided she wanted to take a cross-country trip, which began in August 2004, to do a photo-documentary of these houses with the idea of having a book made of the photographs. "Punk houses are places inhabited by musicians, artists, writers, anarchists, squatters," in Abby's view, "where people with alternative lifestyles can live together cheaply and pursue their interests. It's this generation's rebels; people who are questioning society and the status quo." She continues "Some of the parents of those living in punk houses were hippies," but she says "the feeling is different. It changes from house to house." Banks says there are "pragmatic reasons for many of the punk houses, such as bands living together."
When she told Timothy Findlen, musician/writer/videographer about her idea, he said he was available to join her on such a trip. Tim flew out to California and the two set out on an odyssey lasting for three and a half months. Findlen has a band called Jerk Off Jack Off Frig Face, and he thought he might be able to peddle some of his CDs along the way.
"I wanted to be meeting happy people living together," Banks stated. Abby's favorite punk house was in Seattle, Villa Kula, where a 24-year-old woman was the head of the household. A week was spent there and several book pages depict this house. "It was hard to find," said Banks. "There was lots of stuff in the yard with plants growing around everything."
[Photograph of Villa Kula by Abby Banks]
Another favorite was Seattle Institute for Applied Piracy, where "a group of kids bought land and built cabins, some of which were in trees."
An introduction to Thurston Moore, frontman of Sonic Youth, led to their collaboration and a book contract with Harry N. Abrams for Punk House: Interiors in Anarchy, just released this October. Abby Banks is now America's punk-house maven.
When asked if any of the 65 houses visited "creeped her out," Banks didn't hesitate. She said of a Denver warehouse space. "I felt weird there. There were no windows; lots of dogs; tough people. I felt unsafe." They didn't hang around very long. This was not the norm, however. "Usually houses were friendly and we were led from one to another." Another quality possessed by punk houses is their ephemeral nature. Banks says "Ninety percent of the houses in the book are gone."
This caused a little snag regarding the book contract because the publisher required releases to be signed for the images in the book. A trip to the Midwest for a giant punk rock concert solved the problem. Most of the people in the book were there, and they were able to provide contact information to Banks for those that weren't.
An uh-oh experience on the trip came in Tennessee when the Stencil Truck was stopped by police for speeding. "We were driving too fast because we were almost out of gas and it was late." Banks said "We had just organized the back of the truck. The police took everything out and brought drug dogs to sniff everything. They spoke to each of us separately, making certain our stories matched." Which they did. The dogs were to suffer disappointment that night, because there was nothing to find. Banks said the police couldn't understand how they could exist traveling across the country in this manner.
When asked whether she had a romanticized view of punk houses before the trip, Banks said, "Yes, totally. I felt really inspired and very positive. The trip was beyond what I thought it might be. I met lots and lots of people, really good musicians. I'm still in contact with many of the people."
Since the publisher isn't sending Banks on a promotional tour for the book, she decided to do her own, and in her own "punky" style. She and Findlen left around October 18 for a six-week jaunt through part of the Midwest and then down the East Coast to New Orleans. As part of the bookstore events, the duo will be showing Tim's silent movie titled The True Story of Punk House. 
This is a scene from the movie, shot in front of my house, before I knew what this was all about. That's Abby Banks and Andrew Jawitz, Tim's roommate. Banks will also have a slide show, and do the usual routine, discussing her book and signing purchased books. I hope there will be lots of those leaving the store.
They'll spend nights at various punk houses and they'll be doing music and a puppet show, "Over a Cardboard Sea." Before leaving on the trip, Banks returned to Portland, where she and Findlen were making puppets for the show. They invited me to come over and hang out with them while they were working on the puppets and allowed me to photograph their results.
Here's Abby at work in Tim's basement, creating some mermaids for the show.
And here are the completed mermaids, ready to dance along during the tour.
These are some of the other puppets from the show: the cardboard sea; jellyfish; a polar bear; the moon. That's Abby's decorated paintbox and some other assorted puppets and props that were in the basement. This is my favorite puppet, made by Timothy Findlen. I'm not certain that it has gone on this trip, but it's certainly worthy of being shown.
And here's another image created by Timothy Findlen: a snouch.
I think the Stencil Truck needs a snouch somewhere. Don't you?
Here's Abby Banks introducing the jellyfish to a mermaid. I got a kick out of her little black dress, and was pleased to notice that she wore one red and one blue sock. That made the outfit.
Pat The Bunny, of Wingnut Dishwashers Union, has gone with the duo for their book tour. He'll be performing at night with them. Then he'll be leaving in January for a two-month tour of Australia. Here he is relaxing at the Findlen/Jawitz apartment.
Portlanders will have to wait until after this tour ends before they get an opportunity to enjoy one of these performances. Abby plans to make arrangements here after returning from this trip, around Thanksgiving. So be on the lookout for the Stencil Truck and make sure you catch one of their shows.
