... it's been a year. :)

Same topic.  Kind of.  It's a project post... but it isn't really about photography.  It IS a little about art (?).  Sometime even before the Bears were doing the Super Bowl shuffle, my dad and I made a pinewood derby cars.  One of the later models was a metallic blue corvette with silver windows.  It's the one on the right. :)

Now I don't mean any disrespect by saying this, but in the first ten attributes I would list about my dad... "crafty" isn't on the list.  Maybe if you meant "cunning" it would make the top thirty??? But as far as making stuff from scratch, that's just not his thing.  Every year, though, when it came time to make a pinewood derby car, he'd take me to the Dahlenberg Barn across from Jansma's Bakery (if you thought of chocolate donuts and started drooling a little, raise your hand... mmmmmmm), where my grandpa Boss worked making wood toys.  My grandpa always smoked Pall Mall cigarettes... even while engaged in making sawdust in a variety of ways.  I remember wondering how it was possible that he hadn't burned the place down.


After the car was cut and shaped, though, the sanding and painting was all me and my dad.  He'd set up the ladder in the garage, and we'd go over the nuances of not too close and not too far away... not too slow, but not too fast.  The pressure when you finally had the can in your hand was almost too much for a kid!  What if it drips?  What if it pools?  What if I don't get ENOUGH paint on it?  But my dad always came through, and the cars always seemed to turn out awesome...

So now as a dad, I have this chance with Wyatt.  My last post was about a home made macro studio and a pinewood derby car.  I shot these pics the same way, but the post is really about the car... and art.

I had a LOT of fun making this car with Wyatt.  He said he wanted to make a corvette.  I didn't steer that at all.  He said he wanted it to be blue.  He even picked the color at Meijer.  I asked what color he thought the windows should be.  He said, "I think silver."  I have no idea if he was intentionally replicating my pinewood derby experience... but I certainly didn't fight it.  He did a ton of work on it (way more than it looks like) and I basically worked behind him to "refine" things a little.  Here is the finished product.

He won "Best in Show" and took third overall in speed.  He took home two trophies, and I was stupid proud of him.  This is where the art part comes in.  I was REALLY motivated to finish this project with him.  It allowed me to be creative WITH him, and because it was something we both WANTED to do, it didn't feel like a lot of effort to finish it.

The other project that I finished recently (yesterday) is one that I can't say that about.  It was a three week project that I managed to finish over a period of about four months.  Here it is:

I spent more time not doing this project than doing it, and I really struggled with it.  I WASN'T at ALL motivated to get it done while doing it.  Even though the result was EXACTLY what I'd hoped it would be, it really made me reflect on how different the two projects felt.

I really only made progress on the laundry room when I just made it a set of tasks that had to be done and did them.  The "art" of it was done about a minute after I sketched it.  I think I tried to rely on inspiration to carry me through... but there was nothing "inspirational" about it.  To get it done well, I just had to do what needed to be done next.

And so I think that's it.  Sometimes you can tap into what you feel, and it produces the exact results you hoped for. Other times, though, you have to stop waiting for what you feel to line up with doing what you know needs to be done.  You don't have to "feel" the next step... you just have to do it.

In the end, I'm really proud of how both projects turned out.  The mudroom is next, and I'm back in creative mode on it. Benches an cubbies. Hopefully this post will remind me that in a week, if it's not done, I probably just need a list.  :)