Ok, so free beer is surely the motivation, but can you remind me again what's the official reason we go there? Skater-what? Skateraid, she replied. When we stepped through the door of the Brick Store Pub, I was stunned to see these unbelievable creative pieces (click on each to see the actual decks). Unfortunately, I paid little attention to all of that as free beer awaited me upstairs.
And how/why did I get in? I'm just the somewhat-significant-other of Rachel, who donated one piece. The short story is that beside the talented artists I met a wonderful group of people, all of whom donated their time, effort, creativity, care (and let's not forget - beer) to the worthy cause of Skateraid.
Chapter 2-ish
It was a weekend afternoon and I was busy doing some important work (translation: I was slumped on the couch being a potato and...) when . . . wait, am I repeating myself again? Anyway . . . when I heard the words "why don't you create something for Skateraid?" Are you crazy, woman? Don't you see I'm in the middle of something? (there's a 25-foot birdie attempt on the screen...) "So what do you say?", she insisted. Ok ok, I'll do it - I said in a moment of weakness (or maybe I was trying to blackmail a free snack for my beer). Because what do I know about art? If I happen to join a visit to an art museum you'd probably be wise to look for me at the snack shop rather than at the exhibition.
You might be surprised to hear it, but I started working on it right away. WOWA, what do you mean "right away"? Well you see, when I take on a project, almost any project, I spend a whole lot of time thinking about it, planning, researching, etc. It takes me a while before I start to actually cut and shape and screw. Measure twice cut once, a wise man once told me. If that is true, logic dictates that measuring ten times is even better, no? All this time on the couch in front of golf, football, soccer, or whatever is not wasted. It's all used for planning (hmm, that's an important sentence I have to store away for hard times - i.e., the next time I'm being asked to get my ass off the couch). Ok, where were we? Oh yeah, so for the next several months I watched a lot of sports and drank a lot of beer - all in the name of the planning, of course.
Finally the moment of truth came when I had to ask myself 'how the hell do I do that? where to start from?' I'm not a carpenter and I'm not an artist. So I called my friend Jim and used the magic words "free beer". Jim understood instantly. He's not a carpenter or an artist either, but he owns a few essential tools. Oh yeah, and his beer is right next to the table saw. We found the winning formula!! No, but really, where should we start from?
When I was in elementary school in the kibbutz we received a monthly kids magazine, which we waited for with great anticipation. This magazine had a section where kids just like me were the contributors. They published short stories, poems, drawings, etc. I always envied those kids who's names were printed under their postings. I wanted my name there too. But I had no talent whatsoever. So I cheated. With the help of my resourceful mom (who was probably oblivious to the literary theft committed right in front of her and must have thought this was a school project), on a top of a broken piece of glass with light underneath, I copied a picture of horses in the pasture out of some American magazine. Now you have to understand: not only I didn't know how to draw horses, I never even saw a horse in the pasture in real life. The kibbutz didn't own horses and in northern Israel every piece of land was used for agriculture. Nobody could afford pasture land for luxury like horses. Anyway, to make a long story short, I sent my stolen creation and . . . they published it!! I remember that when I saw it in the magazine I didn't know whether to feel pride or shame.
So this is where we started. We found something similar on the internet. The difference is that this time we didn't copy anything. We just learned from it - specifically the angle. (And while we're on the subject of angles, maybe it's a good time to describe my trigonometry skills. I don't remember the sinus/cosines and all that jazz, but I can tell you that while trig class was taking place, I found myself facing two defenders; I passed them and from a very difficult angle I placed the ball in the upper right corner of the goal (which is in itself a 90-degree angle)). So here's the final product Jim and I produced (click on the photo to enlarge the image):
Now, before you say 'what's the big deal? only three boards and a few screws', keep in mind that the entire piece depends on the center of gravity and balance. And since neither one of us is a professional carpenter (or even an amateur one), we spent many hours measuring, changing angles, calculating, trying, trying, trying. For a matter of fact, before we built the real thing we built a prototype - which in itself took several hours to produce. And when we were finally done (with the prototype) and it held perfect balance, we high-fived each other and sighed. It was a huge relief since until that point it was just a theory, a hope, much like NASA's Mars Discovery mission.... Plus, it was really time for a beer.
That summarized the carpentry part. We still had the artistic part to solve. For most Skateraid folks the art is easy; that's what they do. Not for Jim and I. We scratched our heads and even though it's a known fact that drinking beer in front of the TV is the remedy to solving problems - we still had no good idea what to do or how to do it. We were somewhat concerned that after overcoming the engineering hurdles we would deliver a sub-par piece just because we lack imagination, talent and inspiration. This art world is completely unfair. Once again we found ourselves part of the 99%. The bail out came unexpectedly. As we peeled, sanded and cleaned the deck, a beautiful color emerged. Then we heard the words we love to hear the most: "do nothing", said Rachel, "it's pretty the way it is". We can do that - yes we can! And of course we immediately opened another beer to celebrate the completion of "doing nothing". A few more paint and stain layers later our creation was truly complete.
And there you have it. The motivation may have been a free beer (ain't it always???), but at the end we donated something for a good cause, learned something about ourselves (never roam too far from the beer fridge), and even had fun with it.
And here is where you can place a bid and buy it - in a silent auction.
(And a final disclaimer: If you think that we're artists now and that you can discuss Picasso or Warhol with us in a French accent, all while sipping red wine and smoking thin cigarettes, think again. If, on the other hand, you've got a respectable IPA with you, hell yeah, we will discuss any subject...)
