Locust-Motive A Handcar Created by Teens

Burners Without Borders is proud to have supported Sonoma County Youth  with a $500 grant award toward this successful project.

Locust-Motive was a collaborative art project that included two guest designers/engineers and 9 teen-artists, plus countless volunteers. This handcar was built to be entered and then raced in the Great Handcar Regatta, held in Railroad Square, Santa Rosa. This community event was originally thought of by two individuals who recognized the need to showcase the wide range of artistic abilities in the area.  The basic parameters of each handcar was that they had to be human-propelled, and thus no motors. Chop’s Teen Club located adjacent to the running tracks and with its Art Studio Coordinator, Emily Pugh, a 5-year participant at Burning Man, thus knew the Handcar Regatta as the perfect opportunity to include the creative spirit of teens.

The name of the handcar, the colors, and the idea of it being a bug were solely voted in by the teen-artists. The two guest-designers, Bruce Corson and Stan Summers, shared their expertise with the two art instructors, Bill Donahue and Caroline Gonzalez and the teens. They showed them how to make an idea, that of a bug, into a moving reality.

The making of this art piece was documented in film by a volunteer videographer, Cyrus Cumming, a freshmen majoring in Engineering, at the University of Washington. 

Emily