All aboard Red Grooms' magic bus -- at the Johnson

Red Grooms' busload of colorful characters is on view at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art through March 17. Today, March 7, at noon, curator Nancy Green will lead a tour of the exhibition. Courtesy of the Johnson Museum

It's your last chance to board the near-life size New York City bus at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. The bus, by sculptor Red Grooms, will depart soon after March 17 after idling in the Johnson Museum's main gallery since Dec. 7.

Grooms, who believes that all invention is play, has built a three-dimensional bus that looks like a child's bright-colored drawing come to life. The vehicle's body is an assemblage of sewn, brightly colored vinyl, decorated inside and out with mock advertisements invented by the artist. The interior is peopled with 19 painted paper maché sculptures of a cross-section of city residents, whom visitors can check out while sitting in the one seat left vacant for them by Grooms.

"They're not so much sculptures as characters," said local writer and writing teacher Irene Zahava, who led a group of Ithaca High School students through the bus recently as part of the Empire State Partnership, an outreach initiative with the high school and the Hangar Theater.

Zahava urged the students to use creative writing skills to invent stories about the characters. One student imagined a romance blooming between the cool-looking bus driver in purple wraparound shades and a full-figured, self-confident-looking passenger in leopard skin shoes and purse. Another guessed that a snooty-looking woman in a faux fur coat and jewels had deigned to use public transportation that day only because her Rolls was in the repair shop. A third imagined the thoughts of the sculpted figures, each in his or her own protective bubble, afraid to reach out and talk to fellow passengers. A fourth student was mistaken for a sculpture himself by non-high school visitors as he sat observing a "Rastaman" figure in Jamaican woolen cap, camouflage fatigues and Lion of Judah T-shirt.

In addition, a specially developed coloring book and a continually playing video of a segment from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood introduced the bus to younger visitors.

For information call 255-6464.