FOLKyTONK Overview
Hitting the road in a converted 1961 Airstream a la art relief wagon, visual artist Shelley Horton-Trippe teams with FOLKyTONK musician T.W.Man to discover, document, entertain and collaborate with the growing numbers of families who have lost jobs and homes, as well as the American Dream, and live in RV campsites, national parks and traveling to other countries; becoming a new American diaspora crossing borders, as well as continents.
This video/performance/roots music experiment seeks to redefine community and examine class while re-contextualizing the Dust Bowl trail through a high/low investigation ending in a premiere with live performance, interactive video projection and audience interplay at “Weedpatch Camp,” south of Bakersfield, Steinbeck’s inspiration for “Grapes of Wrath.”