TRINIDAD, Colo. — We all know the traditional mediums for art: paper, canvas, clay, wood, film. But in Trinidad, you can witness some bizarre and awe-inspiring art… on a car!
“You don’t see these things every day. Movable art,” laughed Amanda Palmer, the Executive Director of Artocade, a local art car festival. “It runs the whole gamut, from painted cars, temporary art cars, cars with a lot of glued stuff on them. Mutant vehicles where you can’t even tell what the vehicle used to be.”
The Art Cartopia Museum on Freedom Road in Trinidad boasts vehicles of all shapes and sizes, crafted into magnificent works of art, from a winged dragon car called the Phoenix, to the Aurora Porschi-Alice, a psychedelic, hand painted Porsche.
All the art cars were created with painstaking attention to detail by artists whose medium can, on occasion, move.
“They don’t all move, but most of them we get running for our art car parade, which is the second largest car parade in the U.S.,” said Palmer. “We have a lot of art car artists here in this town, people who’ve sort of picked up on what we do or specifically moved here because of the art car movement.”
“We slow traffic down,” Palmer said. “We get a lot of rubberneckers… hopefully inspiring young artists too, that’s my goal. There’s such a variety here that there’s really something for everyone.”
Art Cartopia Museum is located at 2702 Freedom Road, and museum admission is free! They are open Tuesday – Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
This year’s Artocade parade is set for September 10 at noon, with the festival taking place from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. in Downtown Trinidad. Head to www.artocade.com for more information.