Friday&#39;s Favorites 8/14 Dream Cruise

Cruisin'

I live in the Detroit area about 2 miles from Woodward Avenue and every year in August they have the Woodward Dream Cruise. I have a love/hate relationship with "The Cruise," as the locals call it. On Saturday, when the official day of the cruise happens people bring out their classic cars and people flock by the thousands (actually last year it brought out one million visitors) to sit in their lawn chairs and watch them roll down Woodward. It is a lot of fun. Where else would you see a working shower/bathtub being pulled behind a classic car (and the bathtub matched the car and had someone in it...with bubbles). The hate part comes from trying to get around town the week before because the unofficial cruise started on Monday. If you want to get anywhere after 6pm, plan on it taking at least twice as long.

My first experience at the cruise was while I was a photography student at U of M. I was fascinated by the social relationships that change once someone gets inside their car. Even though a car is full of windows and people can see you it's almost like an invisible barrier goes up around you. People act completely different in their cars than if, say they were standing in line somewhere. If the person in front of you didn't move up right away once the line started moving would you shout out, "Move it!" just like a blast to your horn implies? Or if someone jumped in front of you while you were walking would you easily yell a profanity and maybe flip them the bird? Probably not but if you were in your car you might (hey, I'm not judging). I brought my camera along to the cruise and shot away. We saw some crazy stuff! I printed some of the photos onto transparencies and made a mixed media piece out of a red vintage mustang door that I had acquired. I got a friend to weld 2 pipes to it so it was free standing and put the transparencies in the window. Because it was free standing it represented that invisible barrier I was talking about. I loved that piece but unfortunately due to not having any storage, it got thrown away.

Anyway, in honor of the 2009 Woodward Dream Cruise this week's items are all cruise related! Hope you like them and remember to buy handmade!