Car Idiots Forever™

2021 Hall of Fame Inductee

KATHLEEN "KIT KAT VON BITCH" HARRIGAN

You can't miss her style and sass.

Kit Kat w bike

Kathleen “Kit Kat Von Bitch” 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.

kit kat bass 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.

Kit Kat car painting

Today, Kathleen “Kit Kat Von Bitch” 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 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.