Ways On Wheels
November 30, 2009 – 9:34 pm
Ways On Wheels
(Ken Galloway, Canada, 14min)
His name is Ways and he was once a fast moving outlaw artist, a hit and run gambler on the British Columbia graffiti scene. A police chase and a horrific car crash ended his winning streak, and left him a quadriplegic. “I woke up in a hospital room and had all kinds of tubes down my throat,” Ways says. “I was completely paralyzed from my chest down. Honestly, my first thoughts were “how am I going to have a family? Can I have kids still How an I going to go on with my life?”
Three years ago, he was drunk at the wheel of his car when the police came after him. When he woke up in the hospital, he could no longer move most of his body. He can’t control his fingers anymore, but he has invented a device that allows him to continue spray painting. He can’t walk anymore, but he finds ways to get through barbed wire fences and paint his artwork on freight trains.
Now, however, his parents support his graffiti fully. He had a bleak future before his accident. Now he is working towards a university degree in Fine Arts at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC. The documentary Ways on Wheels brings his story to light. It’s a film about tragedy and hope, contrition and redemption. It’s about committing crimes in the name of art, and finding humanity in the process.
You may not condone the art, but you’ll never condone the man
