Arlington Art Truck Previous Seasons
The Arlington Art Truck, funded partly by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, delivers cultural experiences to where you live, work and play and gives you a chance to engage with County and nonprofit initiatives in Arlington in a unique, fun way!
During the Art Truck season from April – November, artists-in-residence pack the van with projects ranging from interactive sculptures, installations, performances and more. Each project is paired with a County or community partner so visitors can create or activate artworks as well as learn more about County and community resources. Learn more about our previous seasons of the Arlington Art Truck below and read more about the current season.
Recreate the magic of the Arlington Art Truck at home with free, printable projects designed by our resident artists from previous years by visiting Arlington Arts at Home.
2024
Climate Hope by Monica Jahan Bose
What is Your Guidepost? by Molly McCracken
Let it FLOW! by Scott Pennington
2023
Count Your Joys by Heloisa Escudero
Reinvention Garage by Chris Combs
Good Neighbors: Fences into Benches by Michael Verdon
2022
From Our Waist to Waste: Is Fashion Sustainable(?) by Laure Drogoul
Interconnected Roots by Edgar Reyes
Flight by Greg Stewart
2021
A Tribute to the Desegregation of Arlington Lunch Counters by Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.
Words Matter: Honoring Arlington Educators by Justyne Fischer
Chromatic Curiosity by Tommy Bobo
2020
Words to Art Spring 2020 by Sushmita Mazumdar
Greetings from our Microbiome! by Shelly Smith
Vote by Stephen Powers
Flight by Greg Stewart
2019
Trash Garden by Rachel Schmidt
What’s Your Sign? by Paul Shortt
Futura Percussion 1860 by Neil Feather
Arlington Abstracted Mural at the Grove by Marc Pekala
Ties That Bind: Learn to Sew on a Button and Connect by Lorenzo Cardim with artists Charlene Wallace and Angela Latson
2018
Bipedal Soundscapes by Emily Francisco and Alex Braden
You Are Magic by Alicia Eggert
Going Native: Flora and Fauna of Arlington, Virginia by Kate Samworth
Color Your Future Garden by Marcella Kriebel
Arlington Abstracted by Marc Pekala
2024
Climate Hope by Monica Jahan Bose
Contribute to a community created art project by writing a poem, pledge, or an illustration directly onto a hand woven 18-foot-long cotton sari that is from the artist’s ancestral village in Bangladesh. The poems and pledges will complete the sari which has already been adorned with climate themed wood block prints. On the last day, the public can be a part of a procession with over 70 feet of saris through an Arlington neighborhood and by a waterway.
Learn more about Climate Hope by Monica Jahan Bose
What is Your Guidepost? by Molly McCracken
A stack of rocks along a path to help with wayfinding is called a cairn, a term taken from Scottish Gaelic. Artist Molly McCracken uses pieces of paper in the shapes of rocks to make Paper Cairns (#papercairns) as wayfinding art, a meditative form of seeking balance and being mindful of her surroundings. For this project, choose 3 to 5 hand painted and cut “paper rocks” from a tabletop viewing box. Arrange the rocks on repurposed cardboard postcards in the form of a cairn or guidepost, thinking about landmarks or monuments in your neighborhood and community. After making the cairn postcard, write a handful of words on the back that describe what you feel.
Learn more about What is Your Guidepost? by Molly McCracken
Let it FLOW! by Scott Pennington
Match and toss bean bags with images of cotton swabs, dental floss, cat litter, human waste, toilet paper, cigarette butts, “flushable” wipes, etc. with the proper disposal vessel: sink, toilet, trash can or the food scraps collection bin. This colorful carnival game built specifically for Arlington by artist Scott Pennington is designed to accommodate two to three players at a time making it fun for friends and family! Learn how household waste impacts the County’s wastewater collection and treatment systems and how you can help.
Learn more about Let it FLOW! by Scott Pennington
2023
Count Your Joys by Heloisa Escudero
Relax and reflect in a colorful artist installation designed by Arlington artist Heloisa Escudero where you will be able to count everything that makes your life joyful. Select a magnet signifying your number of joys and place on the outside of the Arlington Art Truck. You will see the Arlington Art Truck fill up with magnets creating a collage of all the joys we have in Arlington!
Learn more about Count Your Joys by Heloisa Escudero
Reinvention Garage by Chris Combs
In Reinvention Garage, meet artist Chris Combs and his showcase of once-obsolete household electronics from Arlington that have been reimagined as newly useful devices. Learn how beginner-friendly STEAM electronics can reduce our waste stream: we can reinvent our old televisions, tablets, and household gadgets into magic mirrors, internet radios, and nightlights—keeping them useful for years to come.
Learn more about Reinvention Garage by Chris Combs
Good Neighbors: Fences into Benches by Michael Verdon
Visit the Arlington Art Truck and be a part of an evolving art installation. At first, you will see a long modern fence made of wood invoking separation and privacy. Then, you will be able to write and share your ideas on what it means to be a good neighbor directly on the fence. Once the community has inscribed their thoughts, the fences will be built into 48 linear feet of community-decorated public picnic benches for all to gather.
Learn more about Good Neighbors: Fences into Benches
2022
From Our Waist to Waste: Is Fashion Sustainable(?) by Laure Drogoul
Where do our clothes come from? Learn about the history of American clothing as it relates to fashion, costume, cultural identity, garment construction, and textile waste. Browse the Artist’s sculptural tent, made of deconstructed garments that range in time period, style, and material. Each garment has a label with information about its’ historical context. Arlington Art Truck staff members will model garments and answer questions about sustainability and fashion. Additionally, pick up a free Risograph-printed zine, created by the artist, which provides “close the loop” recycling solutions for discarded garments and textiles.
Learn more about From Our Waist to Waste: Is Fashion Sustainable(?) by Laure Drogoul
Interconnected Roots by Edgar Reyes
Contribute to a collaborative work of art that highlights the beauty of biodiversity and reflect on ways we can support efforts in creating an inclusive community. By painting colors that express your identity within a pattern inspired by traditional weaving patterns from his homeland of Mexico, artist Edgar Reyes leads participants on an exploration of what is native and non-native - not only in plant, bird, and insect species, but also about his own journey as an American with Indigenous and European roots. This project helps participants to understand how being stewards for our local biodiversity is interconnected with supporting our communities.
Learn more about Interconnected Roots by Edgar Reyes
Flight by Greg Stewart
Learn about Arlington’s birds, and those that are threatened by loss of habitat in Virginia. Artist Greg Stewart and Naz Anissi, a George Mason University student, will be on-hand to facilitate your artmaking. You can select from a library of laser cut names of Arlington’s birds, then stencil them onto the ground with sifted soil and create a bird sculpture using clay and native seeds in the shape of the threatened birds to take and plant.
Learn more about Flight by Greg Stewart
2021
A Tribute to the Desegregation of Arlington Lunch Counters by Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.
Arlington Arts visiting artist Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. has been working for the past three years to bring awareness to Arlington’s civil rights history with a focus on the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of Stratford Junior High School in 2019 and the 60th anniversary of the lunch counter sit-ins in 2020. Mr. Kennedy creates prints, posters and postcards from handset wood and metal type, oil-based inks, and eco-friendly chipboard. Much of his work is inspired by proverbs, sayings, and quotes that are significant to the place where he is working. Mr. Kennedy has made seven letter pressed cards to honor the 60th anniversary of the seven lunch counter sit-ins that took place in Arlington between June 9–22, 1960. The sit-ins were peaceful protests that challenged widespread segregation policies.
Learn more about A Tribute to the Desegregation of Arlington Lunch Counters by Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.
Words Matter: Honoring Arlington Educators by Justyne Fischer
Here’s a project to help you ‘accentuate the positive’ amid today’s challenges. Share positivity through the written word using a zine guide and postcard kit with woodcut portraits by Arlington printmaker Justyne Fischer. To inspire you, the artist selected five prominent women educators and activists of varying backgrounds that reflect Arlington’s diversity: Hazel Mahler, Dorothy Hamm, Dr. Evelyn Reid Syphax, Dr. Phoebe Hall Knipling, and Dr. Emma Violand-Sánchez. Use the postcards to write a note to a teacher, mentor, parent, student or community member. Have writer’s block? Flip through the included zine to start brainstorming ideas of gratitude.
Learn more about Words Matter: Honoring Arlington Educators by Justyne Fischer
Chromatic Curiosity by Tommy Bobo
Capture the excitement and wonder of a child with a magnifying glass and re-envision the world around you: Chromatic Curiosity provides visitors with a collection of shaped mirrors and colored lenses to creatively explore their surroundings. Manipulative mirrors redirect the sun’s beams, and brightly hued lenses transform ordinary colors into fantastic spectacles. With these tools, form radiant new light compositions on the ground, building walls, or other objects around the Arlington Art Truck. Like wearing rose-colored glasses or looking through a kaleidoscope, viewers can inspect purple apples, blue grass, and the red sky and think about how light plays an important part of our life.
Learn about Chromatic Curiosity by Tommy Bobo
2020
Words to Art Spring 2020: An Arlington Community Art Project by Sushmita Mazumdar
Give artists ONE WORD expressing your feelings and perception of the #COVID19 quarantine and watch them transform it into art! Arlington Arts will ask you to post new words every Monday for the next four weeks. Artist Sushmita Mazumdar and four other Arlington artists will turn select words from your submissions into original sketches to be posted on our social media throughout the weekend.
Learn more about Words to Art Spring 2020
Greetings from Our Microbiome! by Shelly Smith
Due to the pandemic, we were not on the streets of Arlington for this activation. It was redesigned as a social media project and virtual artist talk. The work of Arlington artist Shelly Smith focuses on microscopic life found in water and soil. The artist has illustrated five postcards, featuring the diversity of microorganisms found in five different bodies of water in Arlington, including a bog, vernal pool, and stream. Come examine the living creatures through a microscope, paint the postcards yourself, and then mail them to friends.
Learn more about Greetings from Our Microbiome! by Shelly Smith
Vote by Stephen Powers
Stephen Powers, the artist who painted the Arlington Art Truck, designed a sign encouraging everyone to vote. We were fortunate to get a handful of these signs for free and distribute them at three locations.
Learn more about Vote by Stephen Powers
Flight by Greg Stewart
Due to the pandemic, we presented a mini activation of Greg Stewart’s project, “Flight”. The Arlington Art Truck offered free seed bird sculpture “Take and Make” kits at various locations. We look forward to implementing the full version of this project(as described below) after the pandemic.
Learn more about Flight by Greg Stewart
2019
Trash Garden by Rachel Schmidt
Area artist Rachel Schmidt created a landscape inside the Arlington Art Truck from discarded plastics that were used by the artist in her everyday life. Participants wrapped the plastic in paper printed with Arlington fauna imagery photographed by Drew Model and Discovery School students. When placing their final wrapped object into the installation, participants heard recorded memories of our natural environment. The final installation will contained 53 pounds of plastic - the amount that a County resident throws away in one year. Through our participation, this project helps us to visualize the landscape of plastic waste to which we all contribute and which never completely disappears.
Learn more about Trash Garden
What's Your Sign? by Paul Shortt
In What’s Your Sign?, the Truck will set up at various locations displaying and distributing signs by Florida-based artist Paul Shortt. Participants can select free, pre-made signs about daily life, consumption and the environment or make their own. These signs provide useful, funny and odd reminders, questioning how we engage in the public spaces that we encounter every day. There will also be a sign making station to create your own signs to take home.
Learn more about What's Your Sign?
Futura Percussion 1860 by Neil Feather
Learn about basic and early principles of electricity by operating a sound machine designed by Guggenheim Fellow and Baltimore artist Neil Feather. This interactive sound sculpture re-uses scientific and mechanical tools like switches and electromagnetic coils – all technology developed before the 1860’s. Activate the sculpture by cranking a bicycle wheel, pushing buttons and switches and turning knobs to make your own sound composition. If you have questions – ask the artist Neil who will be standing by your side in this journey through science, sound and history!
Learn more about Futura Percussion 1860
Arlington Abstracted Mural at the Grove by Marc Pekala
For the Arlington Art Truck, Pekala reimagined eight iconic signs for Arlington business past and present in his signature abstracted aesthetic. The signs were broken into tiles that the public was invited to arrange into their own colorful designs. At the end of the activations, a competition of the best participant designed poster was held with plans for the winning design to be transformed into a mural by Pekala at the pop-up plaza. The winning design was created by Arlington resident Brandon M. Bailey. The mural covers three parking spaces transformed into a pop-up plaza adjacent to “The Grove” – the last remaining vestige of the original Arlington County Courthouse site from 1898.
Learn more about Arlington Abstracted Mural at the Grove
Ties That Bind: Learn to Sew on a Button and Connect by Lorenzo Cardim with artists Charlene Wallace and Angela Latson
Learning to repair your clothing is a great way to conserve resources. For the fall Arlington Art Truck project, artists Lorenzo Cardim, Charlene Wallace, and Angela Latson will teach participants how to sew a button while building community connections. You'll sew fun colorful buttons of all shapes and sizes onto fabric shaped like Arlington civic associations or neighborhoods to create a map of Arlington. During this eight week activation, segments of the map will fill up with colorful buttons which collectively represent the diversity of our community.
Learn more about Ties That Bind: Learn to Sew on a Button and Connect
2018
Bipedal Soundscapes by Emily Francisco and Alex Braden
Bipedal Soundscapes created by DC area artists Emily Francisco and Alex Braden lets participants activate a sound sculpture. By pedaling a stationary bike, participants power a five-tiered turntable housing vinyl records creating their own unique audio experience. Visitors controlled the speed of the turntables by pedaling on the stationary bicycle, allowing riders to dictate the way the piece is experienced.
Learn more about Bipedal Soundscapes
You Are Magic by Alicia Eggert
You Are Magic is a large-scale, interactive inflatable sculpture designed to inspire wonder and evoke the power of collaboration. When two people touch the handprint sensors and hold hands across the platform, the deflated sculpture comes to life. The inflatable fills with air, growing larger the longer participants hold hands, expanding into the words “You Are Magic.” But as soon as they release their hands the circuit is broken, and the sculpture deflates into a crumpled pile of fabric on the ground.
Learn more about You Are Magic
Going Native: Flora and Fauna of Arlington, Virginia by Kate Samworth
Going Native: Flora and Fauna of Arlington, Virginia, created and illustrated by artist Kate Samworth, is a folding, pocket-sized manual of some of Arlington’s native plant, mammal, and insect species of Arlington. Using her artwork as a reference, participators enjoyed a quick hands-on art project examining and recreating the shapes and patterns found on selected species of plants, insects, and butterflies by using collage, watercolor and drawing. By doing this project it will help participators to identify these species and the ecosystems they support in their own backyard.
Learn more about Going Native: Flora and Fauna of Arlington, Virginia
Color Your Future Garden by Marcella Kriebel
Marcella provided five different black line illustrations that you can choose to watercolor in your own way: Arlington seed planting charts that reveal the diversity of the County through a broad selection of vegetables grown in our community gardens in one of the four seasons, or a map of the Arlington Community Gardens.
Learn more about Color Your Future Garden
Arlington Abstracted by Marc Pekala
Artist Marc Pekala reimagined eight iconic Arlington business signs in his signature abstracted aesthetic. Mounted onto small magnetic sheets and broken into multiple 2×2 squares, the artists asks participants to let loose and rearrange them into new original colorful abstract artworks of their own. One of these designs will be selected to become the new ground mural in Spring 2019 in the Pop-Up park at 2100 Clarendon Blvd.
Learn more about Arlington Abstracted