The cardboard Cadillac Ranch prop

The cardboard Cadillac Ranch prop is a homemade costume piece Willowdean Dickson creates for the opening number of the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant. Made overnight with help from Willowdean’s mother, it translates an assigned Texas landmark into an intentionally makeshift object that Willowdean can wear. Its importance lies both in its place onstage and in the shift that produces it: a task Willowdean had regarded as pageant fluff becomes an occasion for collaboration, and the finished prop becomes part of her entrance into the performance.

Assignment and Inspiration

Willowdean begins with a large cardboard box, craft paint, and scissors at the kitchen table, facing the practical problem of making a prop that will be recognizable as Cadillac Ranch. She has given little thought to the landmark since receiving the assignment at dance rehearsal. At first, she would have dismissed this kind of preparation as pointless pageant business; thinking about it more closely, however, she finds the subject unexpectedly appealing.

Her interest comes from the contrast the landmark offers. Texas is associated with famous sights everyone knows, but Willowdean also thinks of lesser-known places and attractions, including the Marfa lights, Jacob’s Well, Dinosaur Valley, and the Prada sculpture. Cadillac Ranch belongs to this stranger, less predictable group: it seems unmistakably Texan while also exceeding the familiar stereotype. That combination gives her a way to approach the assignment as more than a generic pageant decoration.

The real Cadillac Ranch is a public art installation in Amarillo. A row of old Cadillacs is buried nose-first beside the highway; their paint has faded, and visitors are encouraged to spray-paint them. The installation’s distinctive arrangement and changing paint make it a difficult image to reduce to a small cardboard prop. Willowdean’s initial question is how to make something that immediately communicates the landmark, rather than simply producing an arbitrary piece of scenery.

Making the Prop with Her Mother

The project starts late, while Willowdean’s mother is at home with champagne. When she asks whether the box is for a school assignment, Willowdean explains that it is for her opening-number prop. Her mother sits down beside her, looks at the assignment, and decides they can make it work. She pours Willowdean some champagne, then asks whether Willowdean’s waist will fit inside the box. Willowdean says that it will, establishing the prop’s essential form: not a freestanding model, but something worn around her body.

Her mother turns the idea into a practical plan. She sends Willowdean to the garage for wide elastic, a glue gun, and spray paint, then begins cutting the box with an X-ACTO knife before Willowdean returns. The division of work is direct and shared: Willowdean gathers materials, while her mother starts shaping the cardboard. Her confidence that Willowdean will have the best prop in the opening number contrasts with Willowdean’s earlier uncertainty about how to represent the landmark at all.

The materials remain visible in the finished object. Cardboard supplies the structure; elastic suspends it from Willowdean’s shoulders so that it hangs around her waist; spray paint gives the miniature Cadillac its surface. During the work, they paint a white base coat, and a playful exchange of paint splatters interrupts the task. They laugh together as they continue. The making is therefore not only problem-solving under a deadline: it becomes a rare shared activity in which the prop’s construction accommodates ease and play as well as effort.

They finish at one in the morning. The kitchen table is left covered with newspaper pages marked by spray paint and pieces of spare cardboard. Riot climbs onto the table and investigates the completed little cardboard Cadillac. When Willowdean tries it on, the elastic holds it from her shoulders and the piece hangs around her waist. She finds it ridiculous and perfect at once. That paired judgment captures the object’s appeal: it does not imitate a real installation at full scale or disguise its homemade construction; its oversized, wearable absurdity is precisely what makes it work for the opening number.

From Kitchen Table to Stage

The prop’s function becomes clear backstage, where Willowdean stands with Ellen Dryver in alphabetical order waiting for their cues. Ellen wears a matching cowboy hat and carries blue-and-silver pom-poms for her Dallas Cowboys-themed representation; Willowdean has put on the cardboard Cadillac. They clasp hands tightly as they wait. The prop thus joins two different landmark or Texas-themed costumes in the same opening sequence, while remaining visibly specific to Willowdean’s assignment.

Before the performance begins, Willowdean cannot retrieve the dance from memory and feels unable to picture the routine. Once the performers rush out and the lights reach her, her memory returns. They rotate in circles, each given two and a half seconds to say her name. The opening number moves so quickly that Willowdean can scarcely process its pace before the song ends and the lights go out. The cardboard Cadillac is part of this swift introduction: it makes her assigned subject legible through a costume she can wear as she takes her place in the group.

The prop also carries the preceding hours of work into the public performance. Its cardboard, elastic, and spray-painted surface record a late-night collaboration rather than the polish of a store-bought costume. Willowdean’s mother has moved from commenting on the assignment to helping cut and assemble the object, and Willowdean has moved from uncertainty about how to depict Cadillac Ranch to wearing a solution onstage. The prop does not erase the pageant’s hurried preparation, but it gives that preparation a tangible result—and turns an assignment Willowdean might once have dismissed into a moment of shared making and visible participation.