During my lengthy career as an automobile journalist and ad writer I was privileged to drive on several auto manufacturer's proving grounds. The Studebaker test track in South Bend was first (I did say "lengthy" didn't I?), then came Ford's historic Dearborn facility during a brief stay in the company's public relations department, followed a few years later by a high-speed run on Ford's Lommel, Belgium, proving grounds. The latter happened when I was creative director of the Ford of Europe account for the J. Walter Thompson agency and got to play with soon-to-be introduced vehicles. Back in Canada, working as a freelance video writer/director, I had an opportunity to drive on GM's Milford Proving Grounds, followed by some flat-out laps on the high-banked Arizona desert track. In both instances sympathetic GM engineers acknowledged my racing background and let me loose when normally that would not have been (wink, wink!) permitted. My proving grounds swan song was also in Arizona, during a Ford F-150 media preview.

Obviously I have a feeling for such test facilities and can therefore appreciate a truly unique photography show called "Autotechnogeoglyphics: Vehicular Test Tracks in America ." Ignoring, if you will, the unpronounceable title, these dozen images are, quote, "a condensation of space, a microcosm of the country, built for subjecting vehicles to all the types of terrain - from interstates, to suburban stop and go; from dirt roads to black ice - that a vehicle might encounter in the real world." Imagine proving grounds as the subject of art! Yet I can enjoy looking at these "alluring earthen etchings" when viewed from above, for proving grounds are not only places where automakers subject new vehicles to torture tests, they're also a microcosm of what we drivers experience every day. You can see these unusual images at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis until August 17, 2008, and the Carnegie Museum of Art, from October 4 to January 18, 2009.