Is anything ever truly useless?

Sometimes inspiration strikes in the most unnecessary moments.

One such moment would be a United States History project in which the task is to create a cereal box advertising one of Roosevelt’s New Deal Programs.

Not only did I have an amazing idea of how I would advertise the CWA (Civil Works Administration), but I had the audacity to challenge a similarly creative friend to see who could create the better box. I won in the end… but not without ridiculous amounts of effort on my part.

In a sculpture class my sophomore year of high school, I was introduced to the material that is foam core (I think that’s its official name). Foam core is a sort of thin-ish sheet of foam with paper glued on either side, making it firm. To work with it you must have very sharp knives, else the foam will tear away in chunks when cut. You also must be very cognizant of the way you are holding the knife, as with the depth of foam core, holding it at an angle will affect the edge.

Now why, you may wonder, would this boy write about proportions in art when he clearly doesn’t know anything about them? That’s where you would be mistaken. Just because I choose to dismiss standard proportions in most of my art does not mean I am unaware of them.

For the 2022 Innovate WithIN business pitch competition, I pitched a website called “cardboard.com”. This website would be home to thousands of uses of cardboard collected in a free, easy-to-navigate format. It would encourage reuse of the versatile and amazing medium that is cardboard. However, I needed some proof that this was a decent idea.

Something… forklift-ish? Not to go off on a tangent, but I love the suffix “-ish”. You can put it on anything! Buttery-ish, cool-ish, smart-ish, and it makes any word seem uncertain. Not that I’m a fan of uncertainty… but I digress.

The idea of timed, limited budget creations with a theme in mind is used all over cooking and game shows. You don’t need to be on a show however, to enjoy the creative energy associated with competing for the best thrown-together project. My aunt and I tried this ourselves at a Goodwill, and it went great!