>Art car pioneer Tom Kennedy dies on Ocean Beach
>
>Michael Taylor, Chronicle Staff Writer
>
>Tuesday, April 14, 2009
>
>A man who died off San Francisco's Ocean Beach on Sunday has been
>identified as Bay Area artist Tom Kennedy, a pioneer in the art-car
>movement who built the Topsy-Turvy Bus for ice cream czar Ben Cohen
>and Ripper the Friendly Shark for himself.
>
>Mr. Kennedy, who was 48, was pulled from the surf just south of the
>Cliff House.
>
>The cause of death was not released Monday, but friends wrote on
>Laughingsquid.com that he had been body surfing and was hit by a
>large wave, and a companion pulled him to shore.
>
>Rescue crews rushed him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced
>dead on arrival, according to officials at the Golden Gate National
>Recreation Area.
>
>Mr. Kennedy's art cars were vehicles that have been turned into
>rolling works of original art - they look a lot different from
>ordinary, factory-designed cars.
>
>Harrod Blank, a veteran of the art-car movement, said Mr. Kennedy's
>works "were, ironically, inspired by the sea - his famous art-car,
>Ripper the Friendly Shark, was one, and there was Fishbait, an
>angelfish bicycle, the Sharkbite bicycle, the Dolphin Car and the
>Whale."
>
>Cobbling up cars that looked like sharks and upside-down buses was
>hardly in the offing 20 years ago, when Mr. Kennedy was living in
>Houston and plying the corporate trade.
>
>"Tom worked at the Houston Chronicle" in circulation sales, Blank
>said, "and he did the typical things - buy a house, get married, get
>a good job, the whole traditional lifestyle. Then he went to a
>Houston art-car parade. After seeing the effect these rolling
>sculptures had on people, he decided he wanted to make an art car
>and join that group of people. He made Ripper the Friendly Shark.
>
>"It suspends your disbelief. It's a car, but all you see on the
>highway is a giant shark. It's something you're not used to seeing
>on a highway."
>
>Mr. Kennedy left the Houston Chronicle and began devoting every
>waking hour to his new and different life as an art-car sculptor,
>aided by his wife and collaborator, Haideen Anderson.
>
>Mr. Kennedy did art cars for public exhibits and also for individual
>clients, such as Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. The Cohen bus was
>a rolling protest against military spending. Mr. Kennedy built more
>than 30 art cars in all, and his art-car career and life can be seen
>at his Web site: www.tomkennedyart.com.
>
>Mr. Kennedy also did special cars, like the Whale, for the annual
>Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, a place where he felt
>there was enough room to stretch.
>
>"I told him about Burning Man," Blank said, "and that opened the
>doors to his creativity. It was a venue where he could make
>large-scale sculptures and blow fire.
>
>"He was kind of a renegade," Blank added. "He would drive Ripper
>like a shark, zigzagging around. He celebrated that a lot - he
>wanted to live, and he lived by that principle."
>
>He received his bachelor's degree in marketing from the University
>of Houston and then spent a couple of years studying at the
>university's School of Sculpture.
>
>Mr. Kennedy is survived by his wife.
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/14/BAIE171Q3K.DTL>
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See also:
<http://www.tomkennedyart.com/>
<http://laughingsquid.com/goodbye-to-tom-kennedy-art-car-artist-activist-teacher\
-prankster/>