Art Cars On Display At Tulsa Festival

By Ashli Sims, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- Just around the corner from Mayfest is Tulsa's Blue Dome Arts festival, which is smaller and made up of mostly local artists.

Among the paintings and sculptures is another kind of art -- on wheels.

The art car is a mobile museum, visionary art on wheels.

Rich Molden's "Kuntry Pedlur" is one of more than a dozen "art cars" on display.

When Molden and his wife retired, they hit the road in their souped-up hillbilly truck.

Another star of the show is the "Sashimi Tabernacle Choir" -- a blue Volvo plastered with singing sea food.

The artist behind the crowd-pleaser says he and his friends spent about five years putting it together. He says it proves inspiration for art can come from just about anywhere.

"I was walking through the store, and I saw one of those annoying singing fish on a plaque and I was thinking about how annoying it was," car creator Richard Carter said. "And then I realized if one of them was that bad, what could you do with a couple hundred?"

A camera van is the brainchild of art car pioneer Harrod Blank. He says the idea came to him in a dream.

"It was a dream that I had in which I covered the car in cameras," Blank said. "I took pictures of people that were unsuspecting. They didn't think the cameras worked. And in fact, these cameras, some of them do work, so I could be photographing you all while you're filming me."

Blank says he and other art car creators have the same goal -- to create something unique in a world where everything is increasingly similar.

"I create because I'm driven to do it," he said. "It's like being a child, but always doing something. You're always learning something new and seeing the world in a new way."

Art Car Show

If life is a highway, there may be few people as well equipped to enjoy the ride.

Blank is also a filmmaker. His movie about art cars "Automorphosis" shows Sunday afternoon at Tulsa's Circle Cinema.