Anthea McGibbon, Gleaner Writer
This go-kart was wrapped by Best Signs.
VROOOMMM!!! Another speeding car produces an adrenaline rush in your veins as it goes by. Equally fascinating is the design the car is totally covered with.
The driver is moving too fast for you to ask any question but eventually, with research, you are led to the home of Neil and Janice (Maurice) Harvey, artists in their own rights.
Driven by passion
The owners of Best Sign, the Harveys are driven by passion to take their art a bit further than average expression. Beyond paintings, drawings and even graphics, Janice transforms the surface of anything flown, ridden, driven or steered to highly technical and precision works of art. Metal, foam and fibreglass fabrications are the vehicles through which Neil expresses himself.
Joined in more than marriage, the two are interestingly not from typical 'art families'. Aside from Neil's brother, Guy, the only known artistic family member is an uncle, Charles, who did "fantastic car design", he says, and who made good art with his left hand after his right arm got broken.
Janice's only known artistic family member is her bilingual brother, Nicholas Morris, who teaches art history in Germany.
Best Sign was conceptualised in 2003, but Janice says the company is already responsible for more than 200 designs.
With just six persons, the concepts by Janice are printed, then wrapped or wrapped layer by layer directly on to vehicles.
Materials range from poured foam to vinyl for the company that has wrapped trucks, cars, bikes and accessories such as helmets.
Some of the company's works have been for Caribrake, and Chukka Caribbean Adventures. Janice however takes pride in the rather challenging "Castrol car" which is used Òto start Dover racesÓ and promote synthetic engine oil. Strictly by her design, all areas of the solid white BMW, including the white areas are transformed with a layer by layer checkered green and white, and black pattern. On top, is a 5-foot model of an engine oil bottle, fabricated from very light materials mostly foam and fibreglass. This model bottle on the top has already passed the carÕs driven speed of 180 miles per hour test.
Janice got her practical training at Innovative whom she approached to learn sign making, in exchange for her already existing graphic client base. Claiming only six months of formal education at Barbados Community College, the exchange with Innovative paid off with her first contract with Tropical Batteries Limited, who she approached for graphic-design assignments. The company instead solicited her input in transforming the white body of their trucks ñ her first real vehicle assignment, but under precise direction from her husband, a fabricator.
Neil, who formally joined Best Signs two years ago, however, is absorbed in remodeling and redesigning vehicles by fabrication. The car on which he first practiced is being driven around Mandeville by its owner beans no surface design. While Neil participated only in the final stages of remodeling the driven redesigned Lotus Super 7, his input gained him an independent contract - remodeling yet another Lotus Super 7 currently being done and whose surface totally wrapped in a Janice design.
The idea of using a kit to build a car may not be unique to Jamaicans, butthe added touch of Neil brings the structure to an functional work of art. At the same time, like a few daring Jamaicans who dare to build a car or go-cart from scratch Neil's finished vehicle result is eye-rolling.
Inspired by Peter Moodie, Neil currently uses his intuitive creative skills to change all suspensions, making the track wider; offering a brake package, better handling especially for negotiating the corners and improved fuel injection. A wider body is also being redesigned that definitely will be broader than that of the the original Lotus Super 7 sports car.
Neil who did mechanics in high school learned from his fascination with cars in his 35 years as a racing driver. He says "to ride, one must be able to do fabrications". He remembers the 1970s when drivers like himself had to turn "hand and make fashion" as the price of car parts was excessively high.
Neil who is not one to be limited Òby the bookÓ is complemented by Janice who is a bank of ideas and trained in business, resulting in the success of Best Signs. They both specialise in custom made work and this may be the reason for the exceptional talent of their three children, and the rate at which their minds work in all their subject areas. Thirteen-year-old Chad spends his energy into designing comic, which he uses as his practice towards his lifetime dream to designing video, arcade and computer games. The characters are his own imaginations based on his observations of children his age. The family encourages his interest in racing it's anyones guess what will be the design for the surface wrap for the car he practices on, as he himself enjoys all aspects of the combined family business.
Ten-year-old Justine redesigns anything, especially cariacatures she see in books literally along with her six-year-old brother Andrew they both commit to designing new and redesigning existing computer screen games with downloaded software. The Sunday Gleaner witnessed the dynamics of the family as they sharpened each other's honed skills.
Janicesays the business has been subjected to a fair share of exploitations.
As is common with artists, "everyone wants your ideas and your work for little or nothing" says Janice who simply redirects them to where they "can get the quality for cheap".
The greater challenge is however in getting the colours and shapes to be exact representations of the scaled down models.
Anthea McGibbon, a graduate of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts,has over 10 yearsÕexperience in the fields of journalism and the arts. Contact her at islandartattack@yahoo.co.uk or anthea.mcgibbon@gleanerjm.com.
