CARGANTUAN NEWS FLASH FROM ARTOCADE & ART CARTOPIA!

ArtoCade Director/Co-Founder, Rodney Wood retired on January 2, 2022. There has been a passing of the multi-colored keys and wacky hats to the new Director, Amanda Palmer.

As chairman of the Tourism Board, Pat Patrick approached Rodney in 2012 to serve as consultant for the creation of a new arts based event to become the “signature event” for Trinidad. Under the leadership of Rodney, there have been 8 highly successful art car parades/festivals that have achieved that lofty goal. Thousands of spectators arrive annually from near and far to attend our wildly creative festivities. Art cars and artists drive hundreds of miles to be part of the fun. We are proud to say that we have art cars made by “Kids, Quilters, Christians, Cops and Convicts.” In only our second year, ArtoCade became the second largest art car gathering in America - - Thats, amazing considering that the other big events happen in major cities like Houston, Seattle, San Francisco, Chattanooga, Tulsa and others, yup…. Trinidad’s ArtoCade is #2 and has more art cars than #3 & #4 combined = WOW!

In what must be noted as a complete surprise, over the years, ArtoCade began to accumulate enough art cars that it compelled us to find a way to share these art treasures more often than one weekend a year….. “Hey, let’s open an art car museum!” Art Cartopia was born and opened its doors at its location in the former TSJC Mining Tech building in late 2018 with a soft opening and then a grand opening in March 2019. Once again, the museum “knocked it out of the park” by having 18,507 visitors as of September 2021 (yes, we count them) and one of those years was the year of the pandemic. Add all the other fun events like CarDango, Trashin-Fashion and Art Carnage, it’s safe to say that Art Cartopia quickly became the most visited art car museum in the nation.

Over the years, ArtoCade and Art Cartopia have received an impressive array of awards and massive amounts of media coverage that far outreaches regional notoriety to a national reputation and even international coverage. ArtoCade Inc., by design, is a group endeavor operated by a group wondrous volunteers. That said, while under Rodney Wood’s leadership, ArtoCade won “The Governor’s Award for Downtown Excellence - Best Festival” and he was acknowledged with the prestigious “Governor’s Creative Leadership Award (community building through the arts).   

NEW DIRECTOR - AMANDA PALMER
It is with great joy,  excitement and anticipation, ArtoCade and Art Cartopia are proud to announce that Amanda is the new Director and Museum Manager starting. The reality is that she is the ideal person to take over the reins/steering wheel; she will be absolutely carvelous! Amanda has been on the Board since arriving in Trinidad and often says ArtoCade is one of the main reasons she relocated from upstate New York to our quirky little town. Amanda is an artist of national reputation, she’s already been deeply involved in the creation of two art cars (“Karmadillo” and “Spellbound”) in our collection as well as her lovely daily driver “Quick Silver.”  She is the former Director/Curator of the “Alice T. Miner Museum” in Chazy, NY. Amanda has been directly involved in many aspects of the museum, festival and organization. In these roles, she assisted in numerous activities in which our art cars have served as ambassadors and guerilla marketers for ArtoCade and Trinidad. Amanda has seen first hand the wonder and awe that art cars elicit. Simply put, she gets it! Amanda is exceptionally talented and creative, both of which will be vital in her new role as the director and go to art car glitterati. We are thrilled to see how she not only keeps the ArtoCade and Art Cartopia momentum rolling but takes them on to new levels of wacky greatness.