The Journal

Media Credit: Kholood Eid [Click to enlarge]

Mankind has decorated its vehicles since the wheel was invented. Chariots stormed onto the battlefield replete with intricately carved adornments. Greasers cruised down main streets in hot rods tricked out with flames and skulls. Hippies roamed the country in VW busses swirling with psychedelic flowers and peace signs.

Harrod Blank, an Arizona-based documentary filmmaker and car artist, carries on this colorful tradition. Blank screened his latest film for the Webster University Film Series screening of "Automorphosis" Aug. 21 through Aug. 23 in the Winifred Moore Auditorium.

Blank's film, 13 years in the making, documented a bizarre array of elaborately crafted art cars and their equally bizarre owners.

"I made this movie to celebrate this small group of people," Blank said. "You know, frankly it's difficult to go against the grain. They've taken a chance and put themselves out there, obeying their own whims."

One artist, Rebecca Caldwell, transformed an old hearse into a rolling gothic cathedral after finding out she was infertile. A hamburger obsessed German immigrant, Harry Sperl, spent thousands turning his trike into a street-legal cheeseburger. Steve Baker, believing copper to have positive health benefits, covered every square inch of his panel van with pennies.

The only thing more remarkable than the variety of cars was the variety of the people who made them. From business people to hippies, goths to hillbillies, anyone can be a car artist.

"The only thing these people have in common is that they're all different," Blank said.

Along with his film, Blank brought two spectacular examples of car art. "Pico de Gallo" and "The California Fantasy Van" sat in the parking lot in front of Webster Hall.

The "Fantasy Van" looked like a mobile scrap yard enveloped in every brass knickknack imaginable. Bells, coins, ashtrays and even a souvenir of the Eiffel Tower were bolted on to its exterior. In the film, the van's creator, Ernie Steingold, boasted that his hood alone weighed nearly 300 pounds and over $15,000 of coins had been affixed to the van's body; hardly worth a Cash for Clunkers trade-in.

Michael Steinberg, the director of the WU Film Series, got a chance to take a ride in the brass-coated van.

"It jingles," Steinberg said. "The door shutting is just the greatest sound in the world."

"Pico de Gallo," one of Blank's creations, sat alongside the van. The tiny VW bug was weighed down with a mariachi band's-worth of musical instruments complete with cymbals for hubcaps, a stage on the roof and an Fisher record player strapped to the back.

Another of Blank's projects, "The Camera Van," is covered from end to end with old single-lense cameras. From inside, Blank snaps photos to capture the shocked expressions of passersby.

"The cab of the van is completely covered in light meters," Blank said. "When I go under trees, the light meters all bounce and it feels like I'm in a rocket ship. I'd love to get electric or solar energy in that thing, but I don't know of any energy that could power 6,800 pounds of unnecessary cameras."

Before Friday's screening, attendees mulled around the two cars to take in the spectacle. For Blank, spectacle is one of art's rewarding by-products.

"People think 'Well, you're doing this just to get attention,' as if to say there's something wrong with that," Blank said. "It's a giving thing. It's altruistic to share yourself with your community."

Beyond the cars in the parking lot, one of the film's human stars made an appearance.

Decked out in Americana, St. Louis' own Paul Pagano, also known as Father Time, has been a fixture at Cardinals games and parades for decades. His bus was as distinctive as his patriotic dress sporting a red, white and blue paint job, a massive rooftop birthday cake and a banner reading, "Father Time says God bless America."

"When I had my bus, I took it to 20 or more parades a year and I took it to a lot of community festivals all over St. Louis and parts of Illinois," Pagano said.

Following the screening, in a Q-and-A session, Blank spoke about his unusual medium.

"The drive to make an art car is the same drive we have to make any kind of art," Blank said. "Some of the cars you could say are more fine art, some of them are more pop art and some of them are more junk, but I think great art is the strength of the person's voice going into it and if they're really obeying who they are."

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