Trucker is the Da Vinci of dirt
For trucker Arnulfo Gonzalez, grime is like an ink that never runs dry.
He “paints” — using only the dirt and grime that collects on his truck. Jesus Christ. A giant jellyfish. A Thanksgiving spread. A horse with a flowing mane, a soulful eye and richly detailed reins.
One day in 2016, as he waited at a warehouse to pick up cargo, he stared at the filth caked on the back door of his box truck.
After a moment of contemplation, he ran his finger on it.
By the time his load was ready, he had outlined a woman’s face in the muck.
Dockworkers immediately offered praise. And so, every other week since, the short-haul driver has offered a new “painting” to commuters across Southern California.
The Mexican immigrant once had ambitions of becoming an artist. He had earned a degree in the subject and taught ceramics workshops. He took his wife on date nights to drawing classes, where they used each other as subjects.
Gonzalez set aside those dreams and became a trucker in 2000, “because there was more money there,” the father of two said. Besides an occasional notebook doodle, work and his family were his focus.
Often, the 48-year-old Gonzalez answers his muse as he waits for cargo to get loaded. He likes to use classical music as a soundtrack —Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata is a favourite.
“It relaxes you and brings out creativity,” Gonzalez said. Truckers long have personalized their rigs. In Pakistan and India, so-called jingle trucks feature calligraphy, beads, extravagantly coloured arabesque designs or Hindu motifs.
Japan’s dekotora subculture celebrates trucks with ironworks and lights seemingly pulled from an anime.
In Spain, artists convinced truckers to let them paint contemporary works on containers as a way to protest the strictures of museums.
American truck art, on the other hand, historically has been staid: Mud flap silhouettes, the trucker’s name stencilled on the side doors or toys tied to grilles or hung on the back bumper or axle.
Lavishly adorned commercial trucks “are not part of our culture,” said Max Heine, editorial director for Overdrive.
Trucker Cruz Palomares, 50, likes to show other drivers a photo of his favourite Gonzalez piece: Santa Claus on a reindeer-drawn sleigh flying over a forest.
“The cabron has a gift!” Palomares said, referring to Gonzalez using a word common in Mexico that means “male goat” but can serve as both an insult and term of respect.
“The guys I show stay there with their mouths open. And then they say, ‘Hey, your friend made a mistake to be a trucker.’”
Gonzalez tends to agree. But a man’s got to make money.