Harrod Blank

Harrod Blank is a California native who grew up in the Bonny Doon Mountains of Santa Cruz where he attended high school and college In 1989 he moved to Berkeley where he currently lives parttime When Harrod Blank first realized that his 65 VW Beetle could be treated as a canvas the result was Oh My God Painted like a beach ball with a bumper of plastic fruit rubber chickens a chalkboard on back and a TV on the roof the car was the catalyst for his remarkable career Initially Blank thought he was the only one in the world with an Art Car and at times felt quite alienated This would change as he gradually learned from supporters that there were other such cars spread out across the country Drawing from what he had learned from his father filmmaker Les Blank and the BA in Theater ArtsFilm he earned at UC Santa Cruz in 1986 Blank began photographing other Art Cars Subsequently he raised money through private investors and took out loans as needed to finance the 64minute documentary he dreamed of making Wild Wheels 1992 To his credit over 55 million people worldwide have now seen the film Blank initially distributed Wild Wheels featuring 46 Art Cars and their respective artists by driving Oh My God with the film to 50 cities across the country Publicity from the tour gained the interest of PBS which broadcast the film repeatedly as a National Special in 1993 The following year Blanks photography was featured in a companion book Wild Wheels Pomegranate 1994 Blank Books 2001 which was named Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association Blending his passion for Art Cars and his love of photography Blank was inspired by a dream to attach 1705 cameras to a 1972 Dodge van Cleverly hiding ten working cameras among the rest Blank had finally found a way to capture on film the publics candid expressions of awe and delight In 1995 Blank drove the Camera Van to New York City for its official debut and shot over 5000 photographs for a photography exhibit Ive Got A Vision In 1995 still enthusiastic about the beauty and power of Art Cars Blank began production of a featurelength sequel to Wild Wheels 1992 A short version of the film Driving the Dream 1998 29 minutes was broadcast on TBSs National Geographic Explorer in October 1997 to help raise money for the epic featurelength film Automorphosis 2009 was premiered January 2009 at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Thirteen years in the making Automorphosis is considered Harrods lifes work up to this point Blank made his third Art Car in 1998 an interactive mariachithemed music mobile called Pico De Gallo later unveiled in his new book Art Cars the Cars the Artists the Obsession the Craft Lark Books 2002 Gene Shalit heralded the book on the Today 1952 Show as his favorite holiday gift suggestion The Petersen Automotive Museum hosted a major exhibition of Art Cars in Spring 2003 of which Harrod Blank was Guest Curator As of July 2010 Blank is releasing Automorphosis 2009 and is editing Burning Man the Movie a documentary film thirteen years in the making about the radical arts festival IMDb Mini Biography By Harrod Blank