The Ultimate Countdown

10 pages of a politics paper

9 cups of hot strong tea

8 hours of sleep gone missing

7 scoops of Ben & Jerry’s

6 topics of macroeconomics

5 days of nonstop study

4 nights of movie streaming

3 minutes to dance

2 finals to take

1 day at the end… to just sleep.

How To Paint a Piano In 5 Days

How To Paint a Piano In 5 Days

Sing for Hope Pianos 2013

Theme: “Our Universal Language”

Day 5: Completion

I don’t know what else to say besides these two words: WE FINISHED.

Yes, we finished painting an entire piano. 5 days. 26 hours. 2 Fibonnaci spirals. 1 piece of piano sheet music. 9 planets. Countless stars and comets.

  

I cannot even begin to describe that moment when we stepped back and looked at our baby, the piano that we primed, painted, splattered, repainted, wrote on, repainted… The Lion King finale song was was playing in the background as we finally untaped everything, as we peeled away the plastic, as we finally put forth this work of art to the world.

And I played that piano. Its keys are a little light, a little loose, the notes a little flat, the high F sticks, but god it was an amazing feeling to finally lay my hands on those old piano keys and play it. Play it for what its worth — a toiled over, well earned piece of artistic success.

Day 4: Where Magnificence is REALLY born

We are so close to done!! It’s like that feeling I get when I’m closing in on the last few pages of the last chapter of a massive novel, fingers flying, mind rigged high on adrenaline, the swelling orchestral music of the Lion King finale song (this song, at 4:21) playing in my head. It’s that fast flying exhilaration of nothing but pure success.

The spirals are done. There are stars. There are planets that look like planets, planets that are actually perfect circles! — we decided to be smart, proactive, efficient for the first time in 4 days on the project and used the rims of paint mixing buckets as stencil guides. There are silver and white splatters and shooting stars and comets and all the brilliant, glorious things!

This is where we can taste the finish. This here is the culmination of a piano interest rescued out of countless tear-soaked hours of practice and years upon years of drawing and painting lessons. This is what it looks like to put everything aside (spring break, relaxation, sleep, time, money, JHU schoolwork) to something you truly love. And we are so close to doing it.

These were taken off of Esette’s camera, because her camera does amazing things…

Day 3: Where magnificence is born

Day 3: PRODUCTIVITY!! Oh god so much productivity. We’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel of black acrylic paint! We can see the end of this!

After nearly 8 hours of painting (10am - 6pm or so), we successfully…
-drew in the purple/blue arm of the spiral
-drew in the silver staff lines and treble clef of the sheet music (I was breathing sharpie fumes for way too long for it to be healthy)
-did a second layer of black acrylic
-started splattering white and silver stars
-got paint EVERYWHERE (hair, hands, arms, jeans…)
-TALKED TO PEOPLE! We talked to some other artists today and were social instead of being hermits in our corner of the studio. It was glorious. Everyone seems so nice, and there are so many amazing pianos and ideas being born in this very room! This is the birthplace of another wave of art and we are living it!!

Note to any SFH artists reading this: Esette & I made a lot of purple. If the purple is not done by this Friday, before we leave to go back to Hopkins, feel free to come by and take whichever shade you may need.That is all.

There are a lot of exclamation marks, I know. Today was just so gloriously exciting and productive. It’s finally coming together!!!!