Camp, Community, and a Story I Had to Tell

This summer I spent a week at Camp Solomon Schechter volunteering as a medic with my wife. The week stuck with me more than I expected. The people, the atmosphere, the rhythm of camp life — it all felt like returning to a world I knew as a kid, but had forgotten about.

When I got home, I couldn’t stop writing. Three days after I got back from camp, what started as a few journal notes turned into a short book called The Water Lily — a story about camp, service, community, and how small moments can hold big meaning.

I figured some of my camp friends might enjoy reading it, so I wanted to share it here.

• Read The Water Lily on Amazon

• Check out the two camp-inspired sticker designs on Redbubble:

  • Sticker 1

  • Sticker 2

This blog post is just a quick note to say thanks — to the campers, staff, and everyone who made the week what it was. The book is my way of holding on to that experience, and the stickers are just a fun little extra.

If you were part of camp this summer, I hope you find something in it that resonates.

The Value of Hard Work

Why I Love Hard Work

Hard work is one of the most important skills you can learn in life. No matter what you’re doing — whether it’s working in a kitchen, digging a ditch, cleaning up a movie theater, or apprenticing as an electrician — the ability to lean into hard work is what sets you apart.

As a teenager, I was lazy. My dad had to peel me off the couch to help with chores. My grandma had me build a fence for her garden, and I remember coming inside for so many “water breaks” that I’m embarrased now looking back. Even the jobs I had as a teenager, I probably gave 17% of the effort I should have.

Hard work didn’t come naturally. It was something I had to cultivate. And I’m grateful for that. Because learning what hard work actually is has shaped everything I’ve done since.

The Paradox

We’ve all heard the saying: “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

But the paradox is this: if you want the opportunity to have that kind of life, it’s going to take more hard work than anything else. Loving your work doesn’t mean you escape the grind — it means you embrace it as the path.

Learning the Lesson

I’ve worked hard in everything I’ve done in my adult life — the military, sales, carpentry. And in each, I accomplished what I set out to accomplish.

But it never felt right. The military tied my sweat to global politics I didn’t believe in for an uninspiring chain of leadership. I worked my butt off in sales, but hated feeling like I was using my genuine desire to connect with people to sell them extended warranties. I learned the trade of carpentry, earned the respect of other carpenters, only to realize I didn’t want to spend my life building high-rises for Jeff Bezos.

And yet — I wouldn’t trade those seasons. Because in all of them, I was learning the practice of hard work. Building the muscle. Training my brain and my body to show up, to grind, to persist. That discipline is what brought me here.

My Dream

Now I know where I want to point my hard work. Into my creative expression. Into the physical manifestations of my artistic vision — carpentry, paintings, photography, music, stickers. Into building something that reflects who I am, provides a good living for my family, and puts something honest out into the world.

Hard work isn’t wasted, even when it’s misdirected. But it’s only truly valuable when it’s aimed at the right thing.

The Closer You Get

The sooner you decide to take hard work seriously — to lock in, focus, and keep pushing — the closer you get to the place where it doesn’t feel like work at all.

That’s the sweet spot. The freedom to live off what you love, built on the foundation of discipline and hard work.

Takeaway

So here’s the truth I’ve landed on:

Hard work is the bridge between passion and reality.

Listen to your heart. Follow your dreams. Work hard.

What is Adams Carpentry?

What Is Adams Carpentry?

Adams Carpentry is a celebration of blue-collar workers, makers, and artists. It’s for people who know the weight of a full day’s work and still find the time — or maybe more accurately, make the time — to build something, paint something, photograph something, design something, play something… anything that matters to them.

At the center is me, Seth Adams — not because this brand is about me, but because I just happen to be the one making the things. I’m not out here pretending I’m some rare talent. For a long time I couldn’t even call myself an artist. I thought that word belonged to other people — the ones with gallery shows, art degrees, perfect technique.

But I’ve been making stuff my whole life.

The Early Making Years

One of my earliest memories of making is the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby. My dad, my grandpa, and I were in my grandpa’s basement working on my car — drilling holes with the drill press, adding screws at the front for weight, cutting the hood angle, making a little fin for the back. We painted it navy blue and white (just like my ’94 F-150 now) and added decals. I was so proud of it I took my school pictures holding it.

Around the same time I had this teal Game Boy Color with a camera cartridge — a weird little ball-shaped webcam thing you plugged in the back. I used it to make stop-motion movies with my GI Joes, frame by frame, doing rope rescues off the headboard of my bed. Then I’d sit there clicking through hundreds of photos just to watch my little two minute “movie”.

That’s just how I was. Paper airplane designs. Building ridiculous megaforts out in a junkyard from van doors and old box trucks until some old guy chased us out firing warning shots. Writing short stories. Learning guitar, drums, bass, piano. Making short films with my friends. I never called it “being creative” — it was just what I did.

The Trade Life

After eight years active duty in the military, I got out and took the first job offered — sales. Three years later I was good at it, but I hated it. I didn’t like commission work. I wanted honest work for honest pay.

I’d always romanticized carpentry — the smells, the sounds, the textures — so I took a big pay cut and started as an apprentice.

Trades work is for a certain kind of person. For me, it clicked. I love being waist-deep in a project, working as a crew to figure something out, or spending a whole day alone doing something like tongue-and-groove paneling. My brain and my hands working together like that — it’s the same peace I get playing drums or painting.

I hate the two-and-a-half-hour one-way commutes, the cramped downtown job sites, the constant city grind. But when my hands are busy and my brain is locked in — that’s when I’m good. That’s not my default. I don’t idle well.

The Shift to Building a Brand

I’ve always lived in two worlds. One’s unapologetically blue-collar — trucks, building skate ramps, military, the trades. The other is music, art, and creativity — being in bands, playing shows, hanging with artists.

After a few years in the trades, I started meeting other carpenters and tradespeople who were also into art and music, who saw their work as a craft. That’s when I realized: I could put all of this under one roof.

Adams Carpentry is that roof. A banner for people who build for a living and create for life.

What Adams Carpentry Makes

Custom Carpentry

Carpentry, for me, isn’t different from painting or music — it’s all craft. Installing prefab kitchens pays the bills, but custom work is where I light up. Meeting a customer, swapping ideas, seeing them get excited — that’s the good part.

Then comes the shop time: sitting at the computer, over-engineering every detail, chain eating too many hard candies, trying to figure out the best way to build it. Then I build it, deliver it, install it, and stand back. That moment — seeing it done and knowing I did my best work — that’s why I do it.

Photography & Art Prints

I’ve always been into the visual arts. I ran a photography business in my twenties, learned the technical side — Lighting, DSLRs, Lightroom, Photoshop. It was great for a while, but eventually I burned out on family portraits and weddings. Sold my camera, but never stopped taking photos with my phone.

No captions, no hashtags — just a release valve. Over time my iPhone shots developed a voice. They’re just real moments I want to keep. I think they work because they’re genuine. No staging. Just honest slices of life from a blue-collar guy who loves his family and notices beauty everywhere.

Stickers & Design Work

Stickers have always been little tokens to me — things that hold memories. My toolbox is covered in them: trade union logos, fire academy stickers, a mango sticker that says “Bunny” (my cat’s name), horse stickers from a kid’s party.

People put stickers on stuff to express themselves. When I started Adams Carpentry I figured I should have some to give out. Then I realized I love designing them — trades humor, inside jokes, a little grit, a little art. Something you’d want to slap on a lunchbox, toolbox, or hard hat.

Paintings

Oil painting, like carpentry, is something I fell in love with before I ever tried it. The smells, the textures, the process — music playing while I mix colors, getting lost in the work.

My paintings are like my photography: little worlds I’d like to step into. Barn scenes, WWII airplanes, coastal houses. I’m not the best painter, but the point gets across — here’s a place to rest your mind for a while.

Stories

Sometimes I write just to untangle my own thoughts, other times because a story won’t leave me alone until it’s told. Creative writing has always been a part of me. I remember watching The Birds in middle school and rushing to my grandparents’ computer to write a story about a murderous murder of crows. The kid in my story set traps, one of them a lawnmower rigged on a rope that shredded the birds when they attacked.

I’ve been at it ever since. At 34, I’m still typing away, still trying to capture what’s in my head. I like to think my prose has sharpened a little since those early days, but even if not, I know I have the rest of my life to keep at it. I cannot not create.

Music

Music is the first thing I remember giving me the feeling of, “ohhhhh, this is like a whole other way of communicating.” Since then, there have been a number of those moments with the different crafts I’ve pursued. I write songs basically for myself. It’s one of the ways I process. I experience things, I go through life, I do a lot of digging around inside. Then I try to find a way to express what I find through music.

Each instrument I’ve learned has been like a better way to tell the story. Every songwriting mechanism I’ve explored has been another adjective in the language. The Pinewood Derby is very personal to me. It’s named after one of my most cherished memories — being surrounded by people who loved me, making something with my head, my hands, and my heart, and putting it out into the world. That’s what I’m doing with this music project. It’s my honest human experience, shaped into sound, offered up for whoever wants to listen.

The Visual & Cultural DNA

Adams Carpentry looks like my shop — organized pegboard, porcelain cow candy dish with a crown of flowers, a flamingo glued to a toolbox. Stickers everywhere.

My truck’s part of the brand — a ’94 F-150 XLT, five-speed, CB radio. Functional, beautiful, easy to fix. Olive green and Milwaukee red on everything. Influences from tattoo shops, bluegrass jams, skateparks, fly fishing streams, car/truck shows.

The only originality left is honesty — and I take that seriously.

The Philosophy

Adams Carpentry is for people who won’t accept that there’s no room for art once life slaps a title on them — carpenter, cook, welder, whatever.

It’s for people who might not call themselves artists but know they can’t be anything else. People who take pride in their work but know they’re more than their job.

For me, it’s a bait trap for the coolest, most interesting people out there.

The Invitation

If you build, weld, tattoo, clean a movie theater, bus tables, fly fish, paint, or just like making stuff — if you live between making a living and making art — you’re my people.

This isn’t just my shop. It’s a meeting place. A signal flare for the makers who feel it all.

It’s for anyone who builds for a living and creates for life.