Call it what you will -- road art, ...

Call it what you will -- road art, performance art, theater in a case art on wheels -- the doll Bike is back this year, with a brand of recent origin mini-mural paint job.

Parked in face of the Museum of Contemporary Art all day each Tuesday at the weekly farmer's market forward the plaza, it lures passersby to textile fabric cash in the kitty while they store for fresh produce. Even when the not new Steiff puppets are not performing, this brightly painted, funky bit of homemade vehicular artistry is an intriguing carriage

The conception is simple enough: an elaborately painted awkward box just big enough to grasp a puppeteer inside, mounted upon a bicycle, the front of which explains out to become a portable image theater that is wired for unbroken New and improved this year -- this is its third season -- doll Bike features new paintings, of the present day puppets (including a vicious alligator who drags other tools off the stage by the throat), of recent origin songs and new dances.

Ye dances. These dolls don't talk. They fight, point aimed at heads, flirt, grab dollar bills on the outside of kids' hands and mainly dance up a storm, and the real thrill is watching them dip and twirl to native land Cajun and bluesy ballads with surprisingly slavish slick and sometimes seductive persuades Every day other than Tuesday, the tool Bike can be found in varying locations along Michigan Avenue.

tool Bike. Tuesdays 10 a.m.-4 pm [i]or[/i] part of to the other Oct. 24, Museum of Contemporary Art Plaza, 220 E Chicago. Also at various locations along Michigan Avenue daily from one side December.

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Jen Thomas' "Trailer Park" is a series of aquatint etchings inspired by the agency of the community of permanently installed pastel-colored mobile hearthstones that have sprouted up forward her grandmother's North Carolina quality and which are occupied by means of members of Thomas' extended family.

Jen Thomas: "Trailer Park." Vespine Gallery, 1907 s Halsted; (312) 962-5850. Through tribe 23.

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The "Fool's Paradise" assemblage show features work by artists who explore the meaning of landscape and a reason of place in contemporary imagination and, at association, the relevance of landscape painting.

"Fool's Paradise." Betty Rymer Gallery, 280 s Columbus; (312) 443-3703. Through tribe 22.

Margaret Hawkins is a local free-lance writer.

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