Where I am.

In the midst of doing too much before saturday.

List of projects:
1. Drafting a Cantilevered Platform
2. Completing 2 sets of finished renderings of Costume Designs for Prometheus Bound and The Tempest
3. Completing revised ground plans for above shows.
4. Completing finished architectural models of above shows.
5. Attempting to learn all about medieval and elizabethan/italian renaissance theatrical history by thursday morning
6. Attempting to find a subject to write ten pages of reportage about for an unspecified "because your a gradstudent" paper.
7. Figuring out where I am going for x-mas
8. remembering to pick up my malaria tabs and yellow fever vaccination from student Health for entry into Tanzania
9. Preparing 6 new drawings for exhibition in Tanzania in January.
10. Trying to remember to blink.

Featured Artist: Royksopp

Impoverished Vicious Solution

mmmmmm......muy mucho mas bueno.


Things are going to go alot faster soon.
The large and apparently maddening event called Gallery is comming up at which us grads will be weeded and handed our asses on sterling services. Am I worried, not really. I have things to do but with some time management and creativity with glue it will get done. Two half inch scale models of theatres and accompanying sets? No problem. Have I ever built a model? No. When is the model building seminar? Next semester. I could not make it up if I tried.


Looky Ma I done Gud.

I will say that I absolutly love my directing class, I am intrigued by everything I learn in the spare hour and fifteen minutes I am given. Perhaps it is the passion of the instructor for what he does or the intellectual stimulation brought on by the semiotic analysation of Chekhov. Seriously it may be learning how to distinguish a physical gest from an emmotive gest. It makes me want to work in theatre, to work in strong physical non-stock theatre. Theatre for theatres sake instead of for the sake of a good box office.
Fundamentals of Design feels like art class did when I was 10, a nice repreive from the grinding day to day of muddled jumble and hodgepodge. Drafting and theatre history.....I've grown to be ok with.

Mirrored Pianos rock, especially on third floor dance studios with giant windows.

Persimmon Handicap Syntax

The View from my window at work.


So, here I am weeks later. Sick in bed with the first cold of the semester, which has given me the oppertunity to sleep.
Gradschool has been exhausting. 16 hour days full of classes, design work, practicum work and workshop. I've been a little busy.
Events...
I am still debating the whole drawing/painting MFA versus the Theatre MFA thing. I am applying to both University of california At Berkley and University of Southern California for drawing. And we'll see who offers the biggest package, if any. Else wise I will stay here, I think. I have grown to like this city. Now that the "air" has stopped harassing me and I've mapped out a soild repertoire of bars, restaurants and ....bars.

Life....
At school 16 hours a day. I come home to sleep. I have food in my feezer that I cannot eat because I am unconcious when I am home. I have no life. But I have a few new friendish type people.

The blue linen suit I made nearly entirely by hand. Hot Cooter!!!

School...

Drafting. Pattern-making for the stage. The acctual stage.

Hmmm. Upon starting at Tulane, day one, the organization was horrific. My shop had no pins, clothes hangers and barely functioning machines. That paired with the onslaught of ego and misunderstanding that has unfolded to this point is straining my want to do this work. I love the classes. I have briliant professors and lovely classmates, but the overall environmet is a littoe crappy. Constant complaining and talk of revolution abound, and I am just trying to keep my head down and earn three letters behind my name. God help me.

Art...
I have not drawn one thing worth a sixteenth of a cent while I've been here and I die a little each time I remember this.

when it rains it floods

This is not a blurry photograph, this is the rain running down the window.



more to come soon.

because I have to

Having been trained so long to think artisticly about things, to obderve and memorize details and processes, I am a little daunted with the now foreign acedemic world of theatre.
Last week was the begining week of the department of theatre at Tulane. Wednesday through friday I was breifly exposed to how my life will work. One thing became incredibly clear, there will be alot of reading. Deep analytical devouring of plays, theories and histories. I am thinking to myself, "Am I ready for this?" I am used to doing this with paintings, drawings, sculpture. Tangible, visual things made for that purpose. But theatre starts with words, and words and I have been at odds for a very long time.
Initally, what drew me to theatre was that it is in its essence also a tangible art form. You make something happen, and it's live. However, I have forgotten all the underlying turmoil and gravitas that goes into making the essence. Like the world of fine art, the world of live theatre is haunted by the same ridgid, egocentric and product driven traps. Occasionaly one can avoid these traps and work with others to produce brilliant performances. More often than not however a domino efect of toe-stepping occurs and the process becomes a battle of wills and wants rather than a collaborative effort.
Perhaps I've been spoiled in my past collaborations with fellow fine artists in undergrad or maybe I'm just more accostomed to working on my own. Perhaps both. More likely these are just the groanings of my old moorings being uprooted and transplanted to less comfortable surroundings. I'll just have to adjust and deal with the inevitable discomfort, which can at times be an amazing ally in the process of development. It gives you something to push against, and that is easier than pussing aginst nothing.
As for drawing, I really hope to continue my development. I came too far in the past two years to let it all go now. Time may prove to be a restriction, but with my mandatory theatre history class I am at no loss for sketching time. When I get more settled and have a mode of transport, I hope to start back on more large scale projects. I do miss the comfort and comraderie of the studio I left though. I suppose this is the test. In all sorts of unconsidered ways.

Oh yes, you will be mine.

The Hermès Cape Cod Double Tour.
One day....One Day....My Precious.
(ok that was a tad creepy)