- Now, for a different kind of artmaking, ArtoCade.
Have you ever heard of it?
- I have!
It is a wildly popular annual festival in Trinidad.
- Celebrating the creativity of art cars.
- Now this is parade of vehicles from golf carts
to vans that are bedazzled with wild decor.
- And sometime these rolling sculptures have
an interesting backstory as we're about to see.
- This piece comes to us from Hannah Tran
of the Colorado Springs Gazette.
(folksy orchestral music)
- [Steven] We were discarded.
People who are worthless to society.
Dehumanized because of the preconceptions
that a lot of people have.
Addiction and alcoholism, in turn, led me to prison.
People often view guys who were in prison
who've been locked up as some sort of less than human.
But once everyone's here
and you have those external influences taken
off of the individual
You're just left with a person,
that you know has feelings and has emotions
and imagination and creativity.
- [Rodney] They're repurposing themselves,
they're repurposing their ideas,
they're recycled human beings in a way that
are given a chance in which they can create something.
There's many things in this whole art car world.
There are no precedents or real reference points.
One came as an email from someone at TCF,
Trinidad Corrections Facility.
Exploring the possibility of having some
of their inmates make an art car.
- [Steven] What are you crazy?
You want to do what?
In a secure prison environment?
And it sounded appealing and impossible all at once.
- [Rodney] ArtoCade is an art car festival and people say,
"What's an art car?", well.
Just they're embellished vehicles of all kinds,
cars, trucks, motorcycles, golf carts, bicycles.
So ArtoCade is just a big celebration of creativity
by creating artfully kooky conveyances.
- The ArtoCade opportunity has done is
to be able to work on something
that in my mind so removed from prison.
You know, because creativity is, you don't put it in a box.
You can't think about art inside of a box.
And here we are, we're kind of in this box.
You know, it comes from very genuine human place.
(laughing)
Human creativity is and what not really
is what separates us from the animal realm.
I was substituting my creative outlets
for alcohol and drugs, and so, it was often
a way for me to recover, to find recovery.
- It's given me that pause that I need
to make the right choice.
Because in my past, what I've done is make the wrong choice.
There are no mistakes in art, there aren't.
To me, this is freedom.
I never would have thought I'd been able
to do this in my life,
and this is the greatest thing I've ever done.
- Doing an art car, why I don't think there's
any other facility in the nation doing that at all.
- Well the idea came on the very first ArtoCade.
I actually was out on the parade route.
I looked up and I just was like,
"You know what?
"The men here, they can do this."
- Saw dust, pine cones, pine cones needles, rocks,
it was pretty unique.
- [Rodney] They're using another part of themself
in a way that they had no anticipation.
Any more than when a soda can is made,
that eventually it's going to end up being
a piece of art.
- You can use that kind of rudimentary energy
that may stem from like a creative mind
to do something interesting, to repurpose something.
Imagine if that garbage came to life
and had something to say.
(car engine roars)
- [Steven] This experience has reinvested a heart felt
drive to continue to make art as a way
to speak to the world.
Explore, affirms personal meaning, purpose
and a belief in all beauty of life.
(car engine roars)
- [Kelvin] So we search for an outlet a way
to express, showcase our talents and get a taste of success.
Van painted with beer caps, beauty or mess,
just know it comes from the organ that bumps in our chest.
- [Steven] We were discarded into prison,
but then to be able to find a purpose here,
it's really like a portal to reality for me.
- [Kelvin] This was a big black hunk of nothing,
and it's like beautiful now.
- Rodney Wood is such a cool dude.
He is so much fun and an inspiring guy,
and I love that the idea of community for him
is all encompassing.
- Such a vibrant and energetic use of materials,
for more on Trinidad's ArtoCade event,
check out their website.