Da Vinci of dirt? Road grime fuels this L.A. trucker's rolling masterpieces

Jun 13, 2019 at 10:17 AM CST - 1
One day in 2016, as Arnulfo Gonzalez 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. The Mexican immigrant once had ambitions to become an artist. He had earned a degree in the subject from East Los Angeles College and taught ceramics workshops in Bell Gardens. 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. Until the day he realized that his canvas and paint had been there all along.

Jun 13, 2019 at 10:17 AM CST

- 1

One day in 2016, as Arnulfo Gonzalez 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. The Mexican immigrant once had ambitions to become an artist. He had earned a degree in the subject from East Los Angeles College and taught ceramics workshops in Bell Gardens. 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. Until the day he realized that his canvas and paint had been there all along.