(male announcer) Production funding for Rare Visions & Roadside Revelations has been provided by: (female announcer) YRC Worldwide and public TV are natural partners.

We share the very important goal of connecting people, places, and information.

In this big world, that's a big job.

YRC Worldwide and public TV can handle it.

YRC Worldwide: honored to support the communities we serve.

(male announcer) The DeBruce Companies, proud to serve agricultural communities throughout the Midwest with high-speed grain-handling facilities, fertilizer, and feed ingredient distribution terminals.

(male announcer) And by Fred & Lou Hartwig, generous supporters of KCPT and public television, urging you to become a member today.

(man) ♪ Welcome to a show about things you can see ♪ ♪ without going far, and a lot of them are free.

♪ ♪ If you thought there was nothing ♪ ♪ in the old heartland, ♪ ♪ you ought to hit the blacktop ♪ ♪ with these fools in a van.

♪ ♪ Look out; they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out art in their own backyard.

♪ ♪ Randy does the steering so he won't hurl.

♪ ♪ Mike's got the map, such a man of the world.

♪ ♪ That's Don with the camera, ♪ ♪ kind of heavy on his shoulder.

♪ ♪ And that giant ball of tape, it's a world record holder.

♪ ♪ Look out; they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out art in their own backyard.

♪ ♪ Look out; they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out the world in their own backyard, ♪ ♪ checking out the world in their own backyard.

♪ (Don) Dear TV Mailbag, what would Jimmy Stewart say?

(Mike) Harvey.

(Don) Hi, Don the camera guy here, not so sure what a giant rabbitoid has to do with selling boats.

But mine is not to reason why; it's merely to point and shoot.

So I'm pointing and shooting at yet another of Oregon's architectural oddities.

The Pirate's Cove was once a place to procure provisions, but now it's known primarily for providing entertainment for adults, which--and we have checked-- does not open until 11:00.

What time is it, Randy?

(Don) Meet my producers, the brain trust of this operation, which tells you all you need to know.

We're on a mission to find great grassroots art and offbeat attractions wherever they might be.

And we think one might be here in downtown Portland if we can just find it.

The world's smallest park has been, since the 1940s, a source of civic pride, all 400 square inches of it.

(Randy) Lo ok at that little fountain.

(Don) However, except for this cool plaque, we see no signs of any Guinness-worthy green space around.

Do you think it was right here?

I think it was right here.

Okay, match it to this picture.

Oh, see, so it's round, so this isn't it.

Hold on; let's get it lined up so we see it like that.

Like scientists would do.

I'm lining it up.

Could it be under the barrel?

This is how you get arrested.

It's gone, baby.

Girls, what happened to that smallest park?

(Don) As you can see, we're beating the bushes to unearth details.

And here's what we found.

They've packed up the park and put it in a planter until the roadwork is done.

And today's Melinda's birthday.

For a minute, I thought that might be it.

(Don) After a few half-hearted attempts to locate the park, we turned our attention to parking, feeding funds into this high-tech device, buying time so we can peruse the outsider art inside.

Mike thinks he may have found Bin Laden.

And we're seeing works on the walls by some folks we've been privileged to meet and some we merely tried to, like Seattle's Anne Grgich, who, sad to say, wasn't around when we passed through.

These are her heads, and they're really quite nice, and, all in all, it's a very cool place.

So we say bully to the Woolley.

But in the words of Portland's own Kingsmen, we really gotta go now.

So once again, it's back across that river, the one they don't call Willamette.

(Randy) Did I mention that you have to say "wul-AM-et" here?

(Mike) Wul-AM-et.

They said it rhymes with "damn it."

(Don) The motivation for our migration would be this museum, the world's only devoted to paintings on velvet, owned and operated by a pair of California transplants, high school classmates who hooked up much later, and look what happened.

(woman) Yeah, we didn't when we started it.

(man) We had no plan.

We just started collecting them and liking them, and the next thing you knew, we had 50 of them, then 100.

And then she goes, "We have to get 500."

Then I'm like, "We have to get 1,000."

(Anderson) Then I was like, "Get rid of them!"

(Baldwin) "No," I said, "we're going to open the Velveteria.

"We have to open the Velveteria.

"We got all these velvet paintings.

We're going to drop the velvet bomb."

Well, this one, I call Lee Marvin.

This is one of our finest.

And here I got this husky I call Mike Ditka.

(Anderson) Dogs, Jesus, Elvis.

(Baldwin) John Wayne.

(Anderson) And naked ladies.

People do like the unicorn comb-over.

They like Yoda.

They like Jesus and the truckers.

There's something a little frightening that I think is going on with this one over here with the blue flip.

She's crying, and that dog looks like-- I don't know.

It's a poodle, I think, 'cause this is Poodletopia, by the way.

(Baldwin) We have our temperature-control device.

(Anderson) For the museum, you have to have- These paintings, if it's 120, the velvet just melts.

(Randy) Yeah, what is your curatorial background?

(Baldwin) Uh... [laughter] Carl is the main curator.

I mean, I have ideas, but he really is the one that kind of puts it together.

It's your fault.

It's all my fault.

I'm the one.

(Mike) How many paintings altogether?

(Anderson) At least 1,000.

I'd say about 1,100 at least, at least.

I mean, they are thin, so we can kind of stack them up, but we do have a couple garages.

They're big; that's the problem.

Here's one of my favorite artists.

I'm talking about velvet artists.

Hippie.

(Anderson) Hi ppie, we love that, just the name.

(Baldwin) Velvet painting's very hard to do, because once you apply the paint to the velvet, you're stuck there, and you can't make a mistake, like canvas, where you could paint over it and do it again.

There's a making fun of them, but some of them are, I think, legitimate, like that Hawaiian one.

It's not funny; it's well done.

(Randy) Yeah.

(Mike) Here's somebody important enough that they would be doing copies of-- (Anderson) Yeah, Leeteg, however you say it.

I never know how to say it.

(Baldwin) They call him the Gauguin of velvet painting.

(Anderson) Yeah, he could really paint.

You know, it's just one of those things where you keep getting more and more, and then you go, "I have to get more."

And it just kept feeding on itself.

Yeah, I got the Yellow Pages, called every Goodwill and every thrift store and asked them if they had a velvet painting.

They go, "What?"

(Baldwin) "We have a clown.

I think we have a clown."

The greatest thing is finding things that you would never even think of, and there they are on a velvet painting, especially only on a velvet painting, probably.

(Randy) And you're making money hand over fist.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

We're raking it in.

(Mike) Co llect a $3 entry fee.

(Baldwin) Yeah, that $3, man.

(Anderson) Carl always says, "This is the kind of museum you open up when your parents are gone."

Yeah, you got to do it when your folks are dead.

God bless them, they'd love it.

They wouldn't have put a cent towards it, but they would love it.

Well, it would be worth the $3 that Don would pay for us.

Right, if he was going to pay.

Jeez, and all that money I gave to PBS all these years, and they can't even shell out a lousy three bucks, a measly three.

(Don) He does have a point.

But being the TV weasels these two are, they soon turn the tide with our secret weapon.

The world's largest ball of videotape never fails to charm, and by the time we left, smooth and velvety feelings prevailed.

Now, Portland is known as a very green town.

But vehicularly speaking, it's also produced some very cool art cars, like the Reverend Charles Linville's Danger Car.

In fact, we've snagged a north neighborhood joyride in Marci McFarlane's latest creation, a topless beauty she calls The Trophy Wife.

What are we riding in, per se?

This is a '74 Dodge Dart.

The people that do art cars are usually a little eccentric, kind of live on the other side.

I mean, there are-- I have met a few uptight art car owners but far and few between.

I love going by the school sometimes, 'cause all the kids get all excited when they see the car.

(Mike) Of course.

(McFarlane) I made my first art car in '92.

Painted it bright orange and put Astroturf on the top of it.

It's fun.

It always makes people smile.

And if they don't smile, you know they're grumpy people, and you don't want to wave to them anyway.

[over loudspeaker] We charge for pictures, you know, Einstein.

I've never paid more than a couple hundred dollars for an art car.

'Cause you buy ugly.

And, you know, when you look in the paper and it says, "Runs great, looks ugly," I'm there.

You kids, move out of the way!

Watch out; Danger Car, Danger Car.

(Mike) That's a cool seat.

These were both in the dumpster.

Somebody was throwing them away, so I grabbed them.

And I've put varnish on them to try and keep it from cracking anymore.

When I go to parades and there's young kids, I have to drape something over this, 'cause the parents kind of get mad, and they say, "There's a naked lady on there."

There's a naked lady underneath all of us.

Yeah, exactly.

On a good night.

(McFarlane) I got told by a couple kids the other day that my car was "tight."

(Randy) Wo w. (Mike) Th ose crazy kids.

(Don) Speaking of tight, our time is getting that way, so here's a brief glimpse of what else we took in, like the Beaterville Cafe, where not-so-classic cars, I'm tempted to say, get their just desserts.

That would be Beater Bill himself, greeting us warmly, which is more than we can say for Marci's pal and art car mentor, James... [horn honks] who was conveniently MIA.

(McFarlane) Even though Jim's not here, I'll show you his house.

(Don) We strolled around the grounds anyway, admiring his Brahalla and other sculptural forms.

In fact, the Tree of Shame pretty much says it all.

I know they won't count it, but I vote we call it a day.

Now, Oregon is just one of two states with no self-serve gas and perhaps the only one that has a bomber gas station, or had, since this one's been out of commission for quite some time, inspiring us to grab the gloves and play some quick catch.

Bomber gas.

It's right down the way from Boring Road.

(Mike) Well, the restaurant's back there.

What kind of food?

A fancy place or a "plane" place?

I'd like to buy you a "bomb bay" gin and tonic, Mike, when this is all over.

(Mike) Th is whole routine is kind of bombing.

I know, you think?

Even we're getting sick of this "playing catch" thing.

I know.

Have you been writing letters too?

I have; I've been signing them, "your mom."

Gas-giving or not, the bomber's still quite a sight rolling down 99E.

And no sooner had we resumed rolling than what to our wandering eyes should appear but Lady Liberty herself, looming large-- and I do mean large-- over this auto repair empire.

It seems these Iranian brothers wanted to make their mark and refused to think small.

From the day we started by the time we finished, it took exactly a year and a half.

We get a lot of older folks.

They come with a big bus, park here.

They take pictures.

We get school buses all the time.

They come, and all the little children, they come and look at it, they take pictures, and that's what makes us happy.

Think it's a message from Lady Liberty that we need to get our oil changed?

(Don) Apparently not, since, apart from a few falling drops, lubrication has been postponed, and we are coastally bound, chasing a lady named Liza who knows the way to Rick Bartow's Newport home.

Rick is an easygoing, soft-spoken, art-making machine making works in media of all kinds, living in the house his grandfather built on land where his Wiyot tribal ancestors hunted and clammed for generations.

(Bartow) You know, I really started drawing when I quit drinking, and I kind of drew myself straight, you know.

(Randy) Did someone suggest the drawing as a thing, or was that totally out of your own-- (Bartow) No, I'd always been an artist.

See, I'd always worked, you know, like in the army when I was out in the field and stuff, you know.

And I didn't have access to paper, so I'd make sculptures out of leaves and sticks while we were taking a smoke break, you know.

And I just never thought much about it.

Everybody was always busting their butt, you know, and I always thought an artist was just kind of froufrou, you know?

And I didn't see how you could do that, you know, and I always felt guilty about it, so I always kind of kept it in behind.

And I'm always amazed when people buy my work, and I'm always absolutely thrilled that we can live this way.

Don't get me wrong, you know, but I'm not really crazy about my work.

Hawks, eagles, owls, elk, deer, beavers, mink, martin.

There's a lot of that kind of visual stuff going on here, so, you know, it always shows up in the work.

This place is where I work the most.

And I usually work three pieces at a time.

I don't know if it's because of the old adage "three sheets to the wind" and it's kind of an irony for a recovering alcoholic or something.

But I tend to work pretty fast, and if I just work on one, I'd probably ruin it every time, 'cause I'd just overwork it.

And so I keep three pieces going at a time, sometimes four.

[singing] I can carve okay, but I think probably what's unique about my way of going about it is the way I assemble things.

Somebody gave me a couple of limbs, you know, and pretty quick like, it's not a stretch to see how they turn into legs, you know.

And they may be legs for her.

Probably not, but... (Mike) This is an amazing piece.

(Bartow) Thank you.

Walter Clamus, the elder up at the sweat house, likes a story about a flying bear.

And, of course, you know, what is it?

Ursa Major and Minor, you know, the constellations.

Nothing really here that you could say came from a tribal background except that, you know, I did it.

[laughs] My friend always says, you know, "We're artists who happen to be Indian."

And I think that sums it up really good.

The smells, the sound, and being in this funny little place that another friend built for me, it's a wonderful feeling, you know.

And then I've got all these crooked knives.

I've got all these Japanese tools.

Some of the people make their own tools.

I never want to slow down to learn that kind of stuff.

I don't like science so much.

(Mike) The paper's really very beautiful.

(Bartow) Oh, I'll show you my paper collection.

I like to use language in the work, and I write with my left hand so it's kind of childlike just because I know how to write with my right hand; that's easy.

So I like to do things that are more graphic, you know.

A print of the crow, like we saw, diving in the trees.

The more things you can do, the more hats you can wear, you know, the better the chances of paying the bills at the end of the month.

I don't do anything else, you know.

I don't sell drugs or anything.

[laughs] I have no visible talents.

I can scribble and make marks, you know, and I'm not good as a salesmen.

If I did sell dope, I'd give it all away.

I can't do stuff like that.

I'm not good at selling myself or anything else.

(Don) Should I mention that Rick makes music too?

With assistance from his daughter Lily.

We said our fond farewells and resumed doing what apparently we do best: rack up miles in a minivan, heading for higher ground, trading Oregon trivia to while away the time.

If you go to Myrtle Creek, you can't box with a kangaroo; it's illegal.

The world's tallest barbershop pole.

Forest Grove.

In Oregon, it's illegal to use canned corn as bait.

You can use fresh corn but not canned corn.

(Don) If you follow the instructions, "Tie cob on line."

In Portland, people are banned from whistling underwater.

Whistling underwater is illegal?

Yeah.

In this state?

It is.

(Mike) You can smoke pot at home, but you can't whistle underwater.

Hey, are you whistling underwater in there?

(Don) The only thing dropping faster than our IQs might be the Sun, and there's some tight turns ahead.

Maybe you don't want to watch.

Some would say we've gone around the bend many shows ago.

Well, now it's official, although, technically, we're closer to Redmond, on our way to a granddaddy sight in the world of grassroots art, a rambling rock garden built by Rasmus Petersen, patrolled by peacocks, and maintained still by a granddaughter he never knew.

(woman) He started this in 1935 and finished it, as much as he did, in 1952.

He had a sudden heart attack and passed away.

And he might have done a whole lot more; we don't know.

(Randy) That's a lot of stuff, even in 17 years, 'cause it's everywhere.

(Coward) Yeah, it covers four acres with the rocks.

Except for the blue glass, the green glass, and the seashells, everything is from within an 85- to 90-mile radius of here.

(Randy) Any training in his background?

Was he ever, you know, going to school, thinking, "Well, if farming doesn't work out, I'll make art?"

(Coward) No, he just had a place over by the house, between the house and the road.

Those were his first rockeries.

And he couldn't grow anything on there, 'cause it was too rocky.

And so he put a rockery there, and his friends and neighbors convinced him he should do more, so he did another one and another one and just kept doing it.

(Mike) You said farm.

Was he actually farming too?

(Coward) Yeah, he had over 300 acres, and he farmed and did a lot of this in the wintertime.

He'd build them in his garage or down in his basement and bring them up and put them together.

He had forms that he would put them in.

Of course, the Statue of Liberty, we know what that is.

(Mike) Right.

(Coward) And I think that one over there, where the flag is, is supposed to be the White House.

I don't know.

(Mike) Let's see if anybody's home at the castle.

I just came to borrow a cup of sugar.

(Coward) I'm not sure what the castle is, if that's part of Denmark or what that is, 'cause he was from Denmark.

(Mike) One of the things that's different about this garden from a lot of them is, there's so much water here.

(Coward) Yeah, that comes from the canal, which comes from the river.

And it's nice to have the water going through.

It looks kind of like a lake or a river coming through.

And used to have swan boats over in that pond, but people got to where they were getting too rough with the boats and crashing into each other and into the bridges.

And before somebody got hurt or something got major catastrophe, they were taken out.

(Mike) Well, he must have loved collecting the rock, 'cause you can tell he had a love for it.

(Coward) Yeah, and my mom said that he never picked up a rock that he didn't have a place for.

(Randy) And it was a hit, right?

People came around.

(Coward) People came from all areas of the country, and we've had people from just about every country, I think, now.

(Mike) But you have an honor system.

I'm impressed.

You just trust people.

(Coward) Yeah, so everybody can see it, and nobody kind of feels left out.

And there are people that do pay.

There are people that don't pay.

And he always wanted people to come and see it, and that's the way we are too.

There's a sign over at the Statue of Liberty.

I don't know if you've seen it yet, but it says, "Enjoy yourself.

It's later than you think."

A lot of people ask, "What's that mean?"

I say, "Well, whatever you want it to mean."

Everything that's here has been his creation and his building and doing.

And he was quite an artist.

I wish I could have met him.

(Don) So do we.

But being 50-some years too late, we're just glad to see that Susan and her handy husband, George, have done such a good job with the rocks.

In fact, it seems to have inspired some TV weasel weeding.

But don't be fooled; he knows we can't stay long.

There's just one last stop on this show... Hey, hey.

Down the road back towards Bend to a place that's packed with antiques inside and serious whimsy outside, a place whose name ought to say it all.

(Randy) When did the Funny Farm begin, technically?

1977.

It just happened.

Imagine being-- that was a two-lane road instead of four-lane.

And the cars were going 65, an d I tried to get-- figure out a way to get people to stop.

[engine roaring] Whoa, whoa!

(Randy) I don't want him to stop.

I want him to keep going into a wall.

(Mike) Get a muffler, buddy.

The first thing I did was Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.

It was that she was a goat, and I made her a ramp to climb up, and I put some cards up there.

They were all diamonds.

This is the agitator wall.

We keep a picket sign here in case anybody wants to-- feels real agitated.

They can picket.

And without agitators, nothing in the world would come clean.

(Randy) What do you think of the yellow submarine?

Isn't that kind of yellow submariney?

(Carsey) Everything on the totem pole was here at the farm when I moved here.

(Mike) It just said "assemble me" to you?

(Carsey) "Paint me and assemble me."

We put that roof on one piece at a time, and the next thing we knew, the county had issued us a citation that we had to remove it.

And more people wrote and complained to the county than on any other issue they ever had, and we won.

I mean, I don't think people could do something like this now-- in Deschutes County, anyway.

This is Dorothy's house.

There's the electric kaleidoscope.

You have to look in her mouth.

(Mike) ♪ Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

♪ ♪ Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

♪ Are those mosquitoes?

Dang, they're big.

(Don) ♪ Follow the Yellow Fever Road.

♪ [together] ♪ Follow the Yellow Fever Road.

♪ (Carsey) And the bowling ball garden.

I got to get you some bowling ball seeds.

(Randy) Ooh, the bowling ball tree is nice.

(Mike) Bowling balls drop there in the fall, right?

(Carsey) All over the place, yeah.

(Randy) Deciduous?

(Carsey) Hmm?

(Randy) Deciduous?

(Carsey) Yes.

♪ Love me tender.

♪ ♪ Love me true.

♪ ♪ Never let me go.

♪ You walk around the love pond and sing Love Me Tender, and we guarantee that you'll find true love someday.

And the last Saturday in June every year, we have a free wedding day.

♪ For, my darling, I love you.

♪ Well, one of our biggest suggestions in our suggestion box is that I should build a love shack down there by the love pond, which I am doing right now.

(Randy) Now, is it a funny farm, Gene?

(Carsey) Oh, yeah.

I'm a funny farmer.

You know, on my employment applications, that's what I would put: funny farmer.

(Randy) I don't know if Don's mentioned it lately, but he took bowling in college.

(Don) Indeed I did, and my GPA thanked me for it, though growing balls from seeds was not on the syllabus.

Anyway, before you know it, we're showing off our own round record holder and even buying some of the general's junk.

On duty in the Beaver State, this is Don the camera guy signing off.

(female announcer) To learn more about the sights on this show and how to find them, visit us on the web at: DVDs, tapes, and a companion book to this series are available by calling: Captioning byCaptionMax www.captionmax.com Think bowling.

Think credits.

(Don) Ready?

Smile at me.

[singing] Hey, where's that world's smallest park?

Do you know?

I do not.

Okay, thanks.

He knew; he just wasn't telling.

Gadzooks!

Get me out of here.

This guy's crazy.

[laughs] It ain't right, what you're doing, son.

It ain't right.

I ain't right, I tell you.

ding for Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations has been provided by: (female announcer) YRC Worldwide and public TV are natural partners.

We share the very important goal of connecting people, places, and information.

In this big world, that's a big job.

YRC Worldwide and public TV can handle it.

YRC Worldwide: honored to support the communities we serve.

(male announcer) The DeBruce Companies, with facilities providing customers with market information and marketing opportunities for domestic and international grain, fertilizer, and feed ingredient businesses.

(male announcer) And by Fred & Lou Hartwig, generous supporters of KCPT and public television, urging you to become a member today.