Well, That was... Exciting?

 Let's just hope the crazy gets toned down once the presidents switch out, huh?

Meanwhile: a cool architecture project, "super adobe" domes in Hormuz by ZAV Architects  HERE.

What have I been up to?  Starting (finally! because I find armed insurrection distracting, don't you?) to revise the 3D model for an in-the-future show I'm working on.  Since the design has changed, I think it's okay to publish the old version here.

Other than this, there's no theater on my board... except a sketch for reorganizing a theater's closet.  Seriously.  But I am deep into Masterclass videos, currently watching David Mamet and most recently finishing writers Malcom Gladwell, Margaret Atwood, and David Sedaris as well as artist Jeff Koons.  I am learning A LOT.  

A little reading too: I'm half way through Michelle Obama's Becoming which is as interesting as I kept hearing people say.  And I finished Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, who wrote the great Station Eleven.  Love that book!  The new one is very good... but doesn't, somehow, resonate with me as much as her earlier dystopian pandemic novel.  I'm also going, day by day, through Lin-Manuel Miranda's book (illustrated by Jonny Sun) of tweets, Gmorning, Gnight.  Which, as I hoped and planned, are helping raise my mood.

Mood.  

That's my biggest challenge lately.  The cumulative effect of the past year has rather dampened my usual cheery optimism and (sporadically) bustling work ethic.  A little cabin-fevered.  Kinda depressed.  Actually.  

But Spring cometh.

Meanwhile, I'm building a mood-protecto buttress of good books and films (and bi-weekly virtual/distanced Movie Night hurrah!) and, you know, making myself take walks and wash dishes and Do Work and stuff.  I hope you all are being careful and cheerful-as-possible too.

Movie Night films so far?  Desperately Seeking Susan, Office Space, Big Trouble in Little China, Kung Fu Hustle, and up-coming, Love and Death.

Siege - Day 135

This past weekend we took an actual Field Trip!!!!

(So exciting.)

The art museums in Fort Worth have reopened and one of them, the Modern Art Museum had an exhibit I've wanted to see for decades (maybe 45 years?)... so we dared it.  

And it was fun!  Red Grooms's Ruckus Rodeo.  This photo gives you a good idea of the entire environment he creates - a Rodeo even more colorful and larger than life than the real thing.

Red Grooms's Ruckus Rodeo at The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

 - photo by C. DeVries, free to use, public domain

Their other exhibit, "Mark Bradford: End Papers" was also interesting... completely different, being abstract painting/collages, but full of color too of a delicate, subtle, calibrated sort.  This is minimalism that has maximal impact and reward for close study.  And the two exhibits really did contrast each other in a nice way.  (I'll post a few images of Bradford's work next time.)

The museum itself felt comfortable and - in these Covid19 times - felt safe.  The Kimbell Museum next door was much more crowded, though just doable to me... but then its permanent collection gallery was free, compared to the pricey (and thus defacto more exclusive) Modern.  I'd visit both again.

At the Kimbell the curators were having a good time, pairing art works from different periods and places together - like this pairing of a Mayan sculpture with this Mondrian painting, both artists fascinated by mosaic like color / shape patterns.

Kimbell Art Museum permanent collection 

- photo by C. DeVries, free to public domain

So what else has been going on?

The heat of Texas summer has hit... stunning my tomatoes so that they feel too hot to even ripen.  Now that's hot.  I'll be experimenting with fried green tomatoes here shortly.  But I have just discovered a bonus avocado tree!  Well, a bonus tiny sapling where I idly planted the pit of a particularly tasty avocado.  Also the sprouty sweet potato I planted has grown into a pretty vine that shames the useless eggplant plants in the same pot.  Accidental gardening!

On the reading/watching front, I've been listening to more Masterclass gurus.  I kind of stalled out half way through Ron Howard's class on film directing (probably because I have no real ambition to direct a film), listened to a few classes on color by the expert interior designer (who reminds me very much of an interior designer I once worked with), and have started listening to my new poet fav, Billy Collins, class on poetry.  He's very good - slyly funny and very down to earth, plus a good poet.  I've been really enjoying this experience and heartily recommend it - but Take Your Time.  I find I can only absorb so much at a time.

One tidbit from the Poet Collins' talk: he describes the first few lines of a poem, which sets up its situation and eases the reader into it, as "dangling a bit of scenery in front of the reader."  As a set designer I like that!  (Honestly, in theaters with no grand drape to hide everything, a play's scenery does exactly what Mr. Collins requires from his first few lines of poetry: set the scene and ease the audience into the show.  Exactly that.)

Viewing?  After watching Hamilton, I've been "getting my money's worth" out of this one month Disney+ subscription, watching first The Mandelorean (very good and Baby Yoda!) and then rewatching The Black Panther.  The next couple days will be a Disneyfest!

Picture me lounging in my screen-watching-seat, munching popcorn and waving down the Ruckus Rodeo beer vendor, "Hey! Over here!"

Red Grooms's Ruckuss Rodeo

- photo by C. DeVries for public domain

Siege - Days 69-74

I love the typo-title of my last post!  It was not, however, actually Day 64068... it just felt like it.

Since then?

Well, my companion in coronavirus-safety is now back at the official office.  Although doing as much as personally possible to stay safe, some of his clients - first responders! - are requiring in-person meetings and not social distancing or wearing masks or taking this health threat at all seriously.  One Head of Response to Epidemics says that since it's mostly those folks catching it and he's a healthy not-old white guy he's not worried.

So that's good.

(Insert horrified face emoji here... maybe that face from The Scream?  Or this innocent below - This is How I feel All the Forking Time lately.  The world has gone mad.)

public domain image of me, being shocked, all the time

If Texas survives this plague I swear it will only be because of the heat of our weather saved us in spite of ourselves.

Meanwhile the Texas sun is ripening my tomatoes.  We've eaten, so far: 3 lovely ripe cherry tomatoes and 1 big tomato! (Okay, slightly bigger than ping pong ball sized.  Delicious.)

I've been continuing with writing and finishing up that colored birthday map and listening to Masterclasses... right now I'm listening to director Ron Howard.  

Every theater director should listen to Ron Howard's segments on collaboration.  Especially toward the beginning of "Collaboration Part I" where he explains the proper relationship between the director-as-decider and the creative team - which in film includes the director of photography (who does lighting too) and the production designer and composer etc.  I'm paraphrasing here, but it amounts to the director knowing the effect they want, then freeing the design team to make suggestions that get really listened to.  A collaborative director multiplies their imagination and problem solving abilities.  And - my favorite part! - the director should strongly retain their roll of ultimate chooser and decider... because that frees the designers to spitball and make crazy suggestions, knowing that these will be evaluated sensibly.  YES!  That freedom is worth gold.  THAT is the attitude that I, as a designer, hope for in a director.

So the Ron Howard class is great so far.  Steve Martin's was also very good - focused on standup comedy mainly, but with a lot of insight into writing too.  His comments on films like Roxanne were enlightening.  Honestly, I haven't hit a dud class yet.