Handmade Haitian Art, Climbing on Tap Tap Bus, Vintage Fair Trade Sustainable Decor 23x23in

Description

Handmade Haitian Art, Climbing on Tap Tap Bus, Fair Trade Sustainable Decor 23x23in

In Haiti, Tap-Taps are local public transportation on four wheels; it can be a former US school bus or a pick-up truck. Literally tap tap means "quick quick", these vehicles for hire are privately owned and ornately decorated. They follow fixed routes, do not leave until filled with passengers, and riders can disembark at any point in the journey.

Metal drum art is the sustaining life source of Croix-des-Bouquets, the town outside of Port-au-Prince where the tradition of metal art was born. Companies from the capital used to dump empty metal drums in Croix-des-Bouquets, with other industrial waste. In the 1940’s a local blacksmith, Georges Liautaud, took the metal drums and began combining them with iron bars to make elaborate metal crosses. His ingenuity turned waste into something useful that has become a new uniquely Haitian craft tradition.