Please join the Holland Area Arts Council for an evening celebrating pinstripes, hot rods, and art! Meet “Kit Kat” and Steve Leary while enjoying good food, libations, and a little rockabilly. The evening will showcase three one- of- a kind custom cars for photo opportunities with “Kit Kat”. 

Special art sales and ceramic pieces from well known local artists will be available to purchase with proceeds going towards underwriting community programming and scholarships. 

This event will showcase our unique programing, celebrate new partnerships, and unveil the 2024 line up of classes and events. All Proceeds will underwrite scholarships for special programs, classes and summer camps. The Arts Council’s mission celebrates and showcases creativity and provides artistic opportunities for all in the Lakeshore Community. 

Kathleen “Queen of Custom Culture” Harrigan has been creating art of all kinds for over 40 years. While pinstriping hot rods, big rigs and motorcycles is her specialty, she has also worked in the mediums of street art, murals and commercial wall advertising. Her style may be best categorized as low-brow, iconic surrealism. She has operated her own custom, hand-painting, sign/graphics shop for the past 25 years and has honed her brush skills to a highly acclaimed level of perfection. 

Steve Leary from Dorr Michigan is an artist whose main profession is construction. Semi new to being an artist Steve began painting just a few years ago to the delight of just about anyone who enjoys his fun, bright pop art style work. A natural talent unearthed. Steve grew up being a fan of the car Kulture art movement with its cartoons, graphic signs and tongue in cheek graphics. Steve is a prolific and gifted painter and furniture designer who honed his craft after embarking on an artist's residency in Maine that let him do nothing but paint for hours every day. 

The Holland Area Arts Council is supported in part by The Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and The National Endowment for the Arts. 

Carnival of The Arts / Kustom Car Kulture featuring artists Kathleen "Kit Kat" Harrigan and Steve Leary
Saturday, September 30, 2023 6:00pm-9:30pm
$75.00 per person Holland Area Arts Council 150 E 8th St, Holland, Michigan 49423

For more information contact:

Executive Director, Lori Gramer Cell- 616-819-9315 director@hollandarts.org 

Operations Director, Sara Eastwood helpdesk@hollandarts.org 

Kathleen “Queen of Kustom Kulture” Harrigan has been creating art of all kinds for over 40 years. While pinstriping hot rods, big rigs and motorcycles is her specialty, she has also worked in the mediums of street art, murals and commercial wall advertising. Her style may be best categorized as low-brow, iconic surrealism. She has operated her own custom, hand-painting, sign/graphics shop for the past 25 years and has honed her brush skills to a highly acclaimed level of perfection. 

This second-generation artist began painting at age 16, pinstriping fine furniture for such well-known manufacturers as John Widdicomb, Hekman and Baker at a time when much of the world’s fine furniture was crafted in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

This early exposure to precision detail art was under the tutelage of her mother Penny Maple, one of the top decorators in the Grand Rapids fine furniture industry. It was a true family affair and included Kit Kat’s older sister LaVon (also an artist) and younger brother Tom Van Buren (who later started a plexiglass design and fabrication company). This concentration of artists . . . and the inevitable artistic temperaments . . . is what Kathleen calls The Family Curse. 

While pinstriping furniture, Kit Kat also attended Aquinas College, a liberal arts college in Grand Rapids. Her major was art, but she grew weary of the academic approach to the fine arts and returned to the paying art world. She teamed up with her sister and started painting motorcycles and big trucks. Both girls had the opportunity to apprentice for Ken Foster, a California automotive customizer/artist who had moved to Grand Rapids. The sisters soon opened Trick Stuff, an automotive custom paint shop. 

After a brief time working with LaVon, Kit Kat struck out on her own and painted anything a customer requested, from cell phones to swimming pool bottoms and a community water storage tower. Between LaVonn and Kathleen, they have given the guys a run for their money in a male-dominated trade. 

Because Grand Rapids, Michigan is off the beaten path in terms of the automotive art world, it has taken several years for her artwork to be discovered and truly appreciated. Now that the word is out, Kathleen has been invited to participate in such prestigious auto shows as the Grand Rapids AutoRama, Chicago AutoRama, Cleveland AutoRama and Detroit AutoRama. 

In 2011, she was honored to be invited to the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona, California . . . one of only two women to be included in this event (she still sends thanks out to Von Hot Rod). At this show Kit Kat competed in the pinstripers race, a contest to see which of the many famous artists in attendance could pinstripe a predesigned panel fastest with the fewest errors. In her first attempt in this competition, Kathleen was matched against the famous Doug Dorr. Although her skilled hands were visibly shaking, she beat him. 

Today, Kathleen Harrigan has come full-circle and has several pieces of low-brow, hot rod-inspired art on exhibit in fine art galleries on Cape Cod, Massachusetts as well as competing in art competitions in the Midwest. Her motto: “The future is now!” 

The Queen of Kustom Kulture is the business partner of Dino Arnold, legend in the world of custom street rods and classic fiberglass recreations (and a 2020 Car Idiots Hall of Famer!). Among her other enterprises, Kit Kat is the art director at Dino’s Rod and Custom and a Rat Fink-registered artist, a Chicago Brushmaster and a Crazy Paint Slinger. She is also in the Pinstriper’s Hall of Fame, has been published internationally and has lettered and striped big rigs, hot rods, motorcycles, guitars and lots of other items (some very surprising) all over Michigan and across the US. 

                   

Steve Leary 

“When I was a kid, I found my dad’s Big Daddy Roth cartoon collection and it really stuck with me. Big Daddy was a famous artist, cartoonist, pinstriper and custom car builder best known for his “Rat Fink'' character. Unfortunately, my dad and me never got along-always butting heads. Life went on and then he got cancer and died within two years after that. We made good with each other before he died. After his death I went through some things he had in his barn. Turns out we had a lot in common. We both liked to collect kool junk and artful things. 

My dad was not an artist, nor did he try to be but he could have headed that way if he had the patience or inspiration. He never saw any of my paintings or had any knowledge that I became an artist. It’s sad, we had so many things that we could have done. I know he would have tried to make art after seeing what I was doing. He is kind of the reason I wanted to try to paint... because why not! You have nothing to lose.”