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Fine Art Prints by Kent Bash
In the meandering yesterdays of the nineteen fifties lies the fertile playground of my youth. The seeds of who I am, and what I have become are planted there. Of all the memories that crowd my mind, none seem more vivid, than those of my brothers barreling down the road in their Model A roadster. From the age of seven, I spent the next nine years with one absolute desire, to become sixteen and to get a hot rod of my own. I remember thinking every minute of those nine years seemed like a century.
Like many young Impressionable boys in the fifties, my imagination raced with the Images of America’s emerging pop culture. Comics, science fiction magazines, and pulp paperbacks were all required reading. Building models, listening to rock-n-roll music, and dreaming of hot rods were all part of the mix of adolescence. Back then you just weren’t hep unless you had a rod. So I watched with envy, as my brothers built their first hot rod.
There are mysteries both real and Imagined waiting to be discovered by those who reach driving age. I got to share in many of their first adventures, discovering the joys of leaf springs, dirt roads and learning about geography from a rumble seat. Jack Kerouac, beatniks, and the beat generation, Henry Felsen’s hot rod books and the little bit of Rock-A-Billy we could tune in on the country music station in the rural west San Fernando Valley was all part of the back drop of my youth.
That old Model A was part hot rod and part roll-a- coaster. I use to think any moment it would come apart in a million pieces. Still, nothing seemed cooler than for the three of us to disappear in a cloud of dust. Owning my first hot rod was like a rite of passage. For me these Images conjure fond memories, of growing up in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Although these paintings represent only a portion of what I have painted over the years, It was my passion with cars that put me on the road to becoming an artist, and eventually to publishing these Images first.