My good friend Larry Fuente is one of the most amazing artist I know

... and I know a lot of them.

His work is displayed at the Smithsonian Art Institute and has been the topic of many books and films from the popular, "Wild Wheels" to the cover of National Geographic.

I remember accompanying him to a commercial shoot for Arrowhead water filmed at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It must have been in 1994 or 1995-ish (those days are difficult for me to remember chronologically as I was having too much fun).

He needed to catch a flight right after the shoot and asked if I would drive his car that they used in the commercial back to his home in Mendocino.

As I was about to depart he said to me, "Remember, You are Larry Fuente." I was a bit puzzled by his remark and ask him what he meant exactly.

"You already know everything about the car and what inspired me to create it. You're going to get a lot of attention every time you stop for gas or food. You'll save a lot of time answering peoples' questions if you just say you're me.", he explained.

He wasn't kidding.

Within minutes of stopping for anything, the car was surrounded with people. Just stopping to use the bathroom would draw a crowd offering us to be in commercials, rock videos, you name it. If we left for more that a half hour to eat, the windshield wipers on the car would be covered in business cards begging for a callback. Crazy.

The car is his now famous "Mad Cad", a 1960 Cadillac he spent over 5 years making. It would take all day to describe the details but here are a few.

The seats are made of velcro with a hundred stuffed teddy bears attached so when you ride in it, you can snuggle up to a bear.

The sides have the soles of shoes glued to it to appear to be a trail of walking footsteps which he calls, "Lost Soles" The front bumper has 21 women bowling trophies side-by-side with superheros on their backs.

With over million brightly colored beads, sequins, buttons, plastic lawn ornaments, and other items, you could spend days looking at it and still not see it all.

Larry Fuente - Psychedelic Artist

credit

Larry often incorporates puns and play on words in his art for example, at the front door of his house is a life-size German Shepherd made entirely of wrist watches and timepieces entitled, Watch Dog.

Entering his home and hanging on the wall is a life-sized replica of one-forth of a horse, cut in half and down the middle and covered with intricately arranged quarters named, of course, The Quarter Horse.

A mutual friend of ours, Louie Psihoyos, a photographer and documentary film director known for his still photography and contributions to National Geographic, took this cover photo of his art work

Another example of his love for word play is the street-legal Cowasaki. He moo's when you honk the horn and the gas tank is filled by lifting its tail up and plugging the gas hose in his ass.

Larry has a funny sense of humor to say the least. He keeps his mothers ashes in an urn that he stores in an kids lunchbox and religiously takes it to the local bar each year on his late mother's birthday to buy her a drink.

He also has the largest belly button lint collection I have ever seen.

This 4 foot globe made of sequins, rhinestones and amber, hangs in the lobby at the Smithsonian Institute of Art.

One of a group of all-girl rock band project

I hope you enjoyed my post and don 't forget to follow @luzcypher