Kustom Car Culture: The photographs of Martha Berriman
Story and photo of Martha by Michael Sarnacki

Continued...

About a year before the Detroit focus 2000 festival of photography was to take place, I asked Martha in a probing way, "Martha, what are you going to do? You have to have some sort of exhibition." As I recall, she said she had a notion to do something with cars, possibly hot rods. At that time, she had been making photographs of a friend's car club based in the Detroit area. I urged her to give some thought to expanding on that idea. Maybe there was a way to create that exhibition that would touch upon the relationship of people with the automobile. Maybe we could get that car show after all!

Well, during the later part of 1999, and most of the year 2000, she worked on an evolving project about people and their love of cars. It started with people she knew in the Detroit area and then quickly broadened to car people she met during a trip to Southern California for the annual West Coast Kustoms Paso Robles car show. Those images made up her exhibition during Detroit Focus 2000 and were shown at the Padded Cell in Royal Oak.

Martha describes her project this way: "It started out as a request in late 1999 to photograph a friend’s car club, based in the metropolitan Detroit area. Those initial images eventually led to what you see here, an effort to document the people of the traditional hot rod culture, along with the cars they build and drive and live their lives around. To them, hot rods are not just a part of their lives; they are the major focus. They're not just something to get you from one place to another; often they are the reason for the destination. Many of them have built the cars themselves, some have not. Many belong to car clubs; some do not. The one thing they have in common is that they all live and love traditional-style hot rods and custom cars."

Accumulating images for the project has taken Martha to major annual car events in Southern California, such as the Shifter’s Anti-Blessing, West Coast Kustoms Paso Robles show, The Blessing of the Cars, San Francisco’s Billetproof, The Lonestar Roundup in Austin, Viva Las Vegas, The Hunnert Car Pileup in Illinois, and numerous other hot rod shows around the U.S.

Since the first exhibition at the Padded Cell, they have been shown at the Detroit Artist’s Market and various galleries and venues in the Detroit metropolitan area, and most recently at Frenchy’s Beauty Parlor in Burbank California as part of their annual Cut N’ Drive show.

The main focus of this project started out as the cars, but along the way she met and made lasting friendships with many people who all share a common love for the traditional American hot rod in all of its many variations.

Many of the cars have continued to evolve over time; and when she encounters them again in another place, it’s not always obvious that it's the same car. Like the people who own them, things have changed, both major and minor, to continue the process of refining the unique presentation. And so it is, as with most relationships, things change. We adapt. The love continues.

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