Harrod Blank
Encyclopedia
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
filmmaker and art car
Art car
An art car is a vehicle that has had its appearance modified as an act of personal artistic expression. Art cars are often driven and owned by their creators, who are sometimes referred to as "Cartists"....
artist living in Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. He is the son of Gail, a ceramic artist, and filmmaker Les Blank
Les Blank
Les Blank is an American documentary filmmaker best known for his portraits of American traditional musicians....
. His works include the 1992 film Wild Wheels, which documents the artcar phenomenon in America, and the 1998 follow-up Driving The Dream, which focuses on the artists behind the cars. His films have been shown on PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
, TBS
Turner Broadcasting System
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. is the Time Warner subsidiary managing the collection of cable networks and properties started and acquired by Robert Edward "Ted" Turner starting in the mid-1970s. The company has its headquarters in the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. TBS, Inc...
, and in cities all over the USA. Harrod has created three art cars of his own: Oh My God!, Pico de Gallo and The Camera Van.
He is also the co-founder (along with Philo Northrup) of one of the largest annual art car gatherings in the country - the Art Car Fest, held every September in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
. He is largely responsible for the organization of an art car theme camp at the annual Burning Man
Burning Man
Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event starts on the Monday before the American Labor Day holiday, and ends on the holiday itself. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening...
festival and is working on a documentary about the event. Harrod is currently renovating a building complex in Douglas
Douglas, Arizona
Douglas is a city in Cochise County, Arizona, United States. Douglas has a border crossing with Mexico and a history of mining.The population was 14,312 at the 2000 census...
, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, United States, to become a museum and learning center for art cars; the name of the center will be "Artcar World".
Significant achievements
Harrod Blank is one of the people responsible for bringing the art car and the art car community, along with outsider and visionaryVisionary
Defined broadly, a visionary, is one who can envision the future. For some groups this can involve the supernatural or drugs.The visionary state is achieved via meditation, drugs, lucid dreams, daydreams, or art. One example is Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th century artist/visionary and Catholic saint...
artcar artists, out of Houston, TX, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and the West and into the living rooms of much of mainstream America.
After being picked up by PBS and TBS, Harrod's art car movies were widely aired. At the same time Blank applied his photographic skills and energy to place art cars on the pages of many newspapers and magazines around the world. This presentation of the art car community to the world resulted in requests for art cars to be placed on exhibit in museums throughout the United States and in Europe. Harrod addressed this demand with his "Art Car Agency", which consists of a number of prominent artcar artists willing to lend out their vehicles for exhibit. Art cars are now accessible up close and personal in many more areas.
Through his promotion of Houston's Orange Show art car events including the parade, art car seminars and the Main Street Drag (an event which brings art cars to schools) Harrod helped to bring art cars into the world of education where they became the focus of hands on workshops in schools across the country. Public appearances and lectures at museums and art car events helped Blank to use his personal experience to keep the art car phenomenon moving forward. Soon communities of art car artists sprung up in many eastern states and throughout the country. Some of these communities then partnered with local organizations such as schools, arts councils, and museums to create their own art car events mirroring those held in Houston. Through Blank's work artcars started appearing in television commercials and as "drive ons" in movies much more often than the past. Harrod continues to be active in the art car community. He takes a personal interest and often appears at parades and events.
This new visibility for art cars and art car artists does have a downside. For some visionary and outsider artists the temptation to come "inside" to the new artistic genre, where their work has been proclaimed as art and they have been encouraged to self-exhibit, has cost them their special status. Becoming outsiders again is, in the eyes of many critics, now impossible.