#skoolie

After two years and thousands of hours, I am relieved to announce the bus is finally [mostly] complete. In the course of this effort, I endured an agonizing breakup, the sudden death of a dear friend, and a global pandemic. I’ve come face to face with my ferocious and paralyzing perfectionism. Never in my wildest calculations did I foresee this undertaking consuming so much of my time and sanity.

In hindsight, I am humbled—and admittedly a little embarrassed—by my severe underestimation of this project. Somehow, through the immense toil, week after week of nearly imperceptible progress, I maintained the sincere and spectacularly naive belief that I was “just a couple months away” from “finishing.” Yet I am deeply indebted to that naivety; for without it I could never have slayed a dragon of this magnitude.

Given the unexpected scale of this endeavor, I haven’t been able to bring myself to post the process online. Creating art and sharing it are two very distinct skills, and the latter does not come naturally. I was engaged in such a mental, physical, and emotional war of attrition with this 24-foot-long steel tube that I could think of little else. My hiatus from social media, the silence and the secrecy, has caused me plenty of guilt. I have to remind myself that I don’t owe anyone anything.

Candidly, I am unbelievably … proud of what I’ve built. What I envisioned as a “fun little project” has become, as my mother calls it, an opus. Before the bus, I had never so much as held a drill, but YouTube and trial-and-error are magical stimulants. I set out to mobilize my musical aspirations, but somewhere along the way I unwittingly fell in love with architecture, woodworking, and small space design. I am beyond excited to share my work in more detail over the coming weeks and months. Nearly every inch of this bus was created from scratch, and each piece of furniture is singular and transformable.

Everyone has been asking what’s next. Where will I go? When will I leave? What will I do? The truth is I haven’t decided yet. For now, I’m just pouring myself cups of coffee and sitting on a couch that I built with my bare hands. Damnit, I’ve earned it.