Educational Media Reviews Online

Tom Luckey boastfully says that at one point, he was considered the nation’s best known artist for children’s large scale interactive sculpture. Tragically after an accidental fall at home and a severe head injury Tom is now a quadriplegic. In order to maintain his life and business, he has had to develop a complex series of relationships with his son Spencer and his wife Ettie, as well as his extended family and friends. Through early video footage and conversations with Tom, you see a wildly energetic and creative person who becomes a one man business—designing and executing his own works, from initial models to full scale installation. But after his accident, his son Spencer, an architect, has taken on the task of trying to collaborate with his father to understand his creative process and by using computer graphics carry out his father’s designs. The documentary captures the agony of conflict between a father and son, as well as an artist and a technician – this scenario repeats itself many times throughout. Sometimes the conflict subsides when an installation is completed, such as the example in the Boston Children’s Museum featured in the film.

Tom’s relationship with his wife Ettie is drastically altered. Rather than a lover, spouse, mother of the children, she becomes primarily a caregiver for Tom. A role accepted with great strength but very trying as she tries to mitigate the conflict between her husband and step-son Spencer. Interwoven with them are other family and an array of friends, skilled in music and craft that bring to their lives a sense of ‘quality’ despite Tom’s severe injury – and gives Tom pause to reflect on why it better to be living each day. Over the filming of the documentary relationships did change and the collaborative work with Spencer stopped and Tom separated from Ettie, but these are noted as simple notations with comments about Tom moving forward with his life. Which in many respects is the larger point of the documentary.