Hobart Brown, 73; cofounded wacky sculpture race
LOS ANGELES - It started in 1968 when Hobart Brown, a Northern California metal sculptor and art gallery owner, took his son's tricycle and, in a burst of Rube Goldberg-like creativity, used its parts to create a pentacycle: a five-wheeled, 5 1/2-foot-tall red contraption with wrought-iron curlicues, a steering wheel, and a surreylike top.
Fellow sculptor Jack Mays laughed when he saw what Mr. Brown had wrought, then said he could build an even better kinetic sculpture.
Mays created a pedal-powered, 12-foot-high tank. But that wasn't the end of it.
As Mr. Brown later told SF Weekly: "In America, if you have two of anything, you have to race."
On Mother's Day 1969, Mr. Brown, Mays, and entrants manning nine other pedal-powered, wacky works of art raced down Main Street in Ferndale, a 19th-century Victorian village on California's northern coast.
With a crowd of spectators there for the annual arts festival urging them on, artist Bob Brown won the brief race. His winning entry? A whimsical tortoise that laid eggs, squirted water, and emitted a loud mating call.
Thus was born the Kinetic Sculpture Race, an annual event that has been called "one of the nuttiest races in the nation."
Mr. Brown, who was called "the glorious founder" of the race and typically showed up in top hat and tailcoat, died of pneumonia Wednesday in Fortuna, said his son, Justin. He was 73.
As an artist, Mr. Brown was known for his copper, brass, and steel representational sculptures. But it's the annual race, which inspired similar events as far away as Poland and Australia, that gave the artist unexpected fame.
"He lived for it," Justin Brown said of the race. "He was active in it until he couldn't physically do it."
The race now covers 42 miles, beginning in Arcata and ending in Ferndale, and traverses not only streets and highways, but also sand, mud, gravel, and water.
In addition to his son, Mr. Brown leaves three other children, Mark, Michael, and Emily; a brother, Coy Brown; a half brother, Phillip Ostler; and nine grandchildren. 