Siege - Day 155

Time... well, it sorta stutters past these days.  

If it passes at all.  A time-vortex maybe?

A day?  Poof!.  A week, however, can trudge on and on and endlessly on, malingering, unrelenting, until grudgingly slumping on into a Friday afternoon.  Months?  Poof!  This whole year though?  

Here's an illustration of this year: I had a crown fall off of a tooth a few weeks ago and the dentist re-glued it into place saying, "There!  That'll last twenty years!"  Yesterday was the twenty year anniversary - because it popped right back off.  So that's (does math) about five years to a week?  So 2020 is basically unfolding in Dog Years?!

2020 is Dog Years plus dental work?  

Of course it is.

Public domain images messed with

Meanwhile, inside my time vortexing studio I've been finding it hard to be productive.  So I reread Austin Kleon's Keep Going for advice.   And I did start reading a new novel; restart listening to Master Classes (David Sedaris now); did start redesigning and redrafting plans for a pump house (which need finishing!); did start swimming more (need more exercise! it improves health and mood); I'm doing serious thinking about one show...  I started generally trying to Buck Up and Get Things Done.  

Also I cut back on reading the news.  Started planning a vacation.  I need a vacation.

If you're having the same time and motivation troubles try that Keep Going book - it helps - and do something, anything, productive, even if it's just clearing off your desk.

ADDENDUM:  Ha!  I'm not the only sufferer, Austin Kleon talks about this too (more eloquently) in a recent post HERE.

Enjoy the Lulls

Although I do still have one show a'building this year (today in fact), I'm in a relative lull... at least compared to the crazy crazy pace of even a few weeks ago.

I'm enjoying the lull.

Next week, of course, the annual Turkey / Christmas crazy begins, but today, lull.

Well, after I sort the reimbursible theater receipts...

Then dig out my drawing board, trashed while pulling out drawings for yesterday's set design workshop, and needing to watercolor pencil one last little rendering, and...  I can't even find the drawing surface at the moment.

Then cleaning out my car.  The poor ol' Scenic Ride is filled to the scuppers with STUFF from six shows or so.

It must be time to take a lull... because my desk and car are too trashed to use today!

I sometimes joke that I know I'm done designing a show when I discover that I'm drawing on a sheet of paper I can only get to by peeling off the tape of other, higher levels of drawings and sorta crawling under them - paper tenting over my head.  Then it must be time to stop.

Well now, clearly, it's time to get organized!

Collaging for the Stage

You do some funny stuff for the theater...

Last week was a big push on my drafting board to finish some collaged jewelry for Kitchen Dog Theater's annual fund raiser party Hooch & Pooch.  (Great name huh?)  At the same time I made a few pieces as little presents for an up-coming family event.  So my studio is still filled - FILLED! - with little bitty clips of paper.

Collage is a messy art!

My studio... my board under assault by bits of paper.

Here you can see my board pretty well buried in paper... no drawing going on today!  (Tea drinking, yes, drawing, no.)

More scraps of paper...

This necklace is based on a Kimbell Art Museum brochure for a middle eastern art show some years ago (I save paper dangit).  The image is of Persian ceramic tiles showing a romantic garden picnic... from which I cut tiny portions of the various floral motifs for the main discs on this necklace.  Other papers come from leftover Chinese soap wrappers and itty bitty catalogue illustrations of William Morris floral designs.

And more scraps of paper!

More collage...  Here are a few pins made from a reproduction of an old British game board (a bit like Bingo, I think) and the beginning of a tiny framed art piece where - unlikely as it seems - Chagall and Keith Herring designs will work happily together.

Below - more pins made from bejeweled Mexican Bingo images.

Some of my favorites.

Missed your chance to win a piece of my jewelry at Hooch & Pooch?  Donations to Kitchen Dog Theater still cheerfully accepted!  I'll make ya a pin custom as a Thank You.

(Interested in collage jewelry?  HERE's a Squidoo page I made on the topic.)

Up on the Roof

Spring Cleaning: lets fresh air in... in every way.

Yesterday was a beautiful spring day.  A day to open up the house to the breeze.

A day to clean up the garden.  Mostly pruning.  Clipping low stuff, weeds and escaping vines, pruning middle-height shrubs, and even hacking at the high stuff: out came the tree saw on its long wobbly pole and, inevitably, the ladder.  Soon I was up on the roof for overhanging tree branches, but also vigorously scrubbing at the greenhouse roof over part of my studio with the hose and a broom.  Water everywhere.

I'd forgotten how wonderful it feels to be up on the roof!

Looking down on new-leafy trees; the scent of lime blossoms carried by the spring breeze up over the roof ridge; the bird's perch view!  Seeing the neighborhood - more like toy houses from here - laid out in a secret-map of interlocking yards.  An eagle's view.

Wonderfully refreshing - blows away mental cobwebs.

Need a break in your routine?  Feel stale and need to freshen your designing?  Try up on the roof.

Public domain image from publicdomainpicture.net

James Taylor singing "Up on the Roof  HERE.

It's nice to have a cleaner skylight again.  I get a better view of the sky now  (and also of the under-carriages of birds and squirrels).

(ADDENDUM:  A follow-up post HERE.)

Holidays Approaching (the Studio)

This week has been spent mostly in temporarily moving my studio in order to create room for house guests.

I can heartily recommend designing your own studio using easy to move furniture because, over the years, you'd be amazed at just how often it's been useful to move or rearrange my working-quarters.  Sometimes its been because the weather out in my converted porch has been too arctic or Saharan; sometimes it's been to make room for house guests or house plants or visiting other-people's-cats; sometimes its been due to repainting or...

In a weird way, the moves are fun.  Working in a slightly different environment shakes up old habits - I kinda enjoy it - and when I move back into my usual space and configuration I always have a few improvements... plus it's tidier!

My studio, looking a little messy and November bleak.

More discussion of studio organization HERE.

As you can guess from the black box in the foreground, I am an advocate of the "Box" school of storage - everything for one project goes in one box, in strict chronological order with most recently utilized on top.  (File folders?  Phoo!)  I was heartened to discover that the famous choreographer Twila Tharp uses the same method, just with bigger boxes.  I like 'em flat-n-shallow for drawings - I started with pizza boxes.

More on office environments HERE.

Picasso's Studio

Now this is a studio!  Picasso's...

Picasso's studio - photo from Eye-Likely blog

More photos of his studio - plus a young Brigette Bardo HERE.  (My own, more humble version of a studio HERE.)

Studio Organization

I've meant to show you the results of my studio reorganization - reworking all my drawing storage.  (And storage for papers used in collage art too, as well as art supplies, etc. etc. etc.)  But I was deterred by the immediate mess that working creates - for me anyway.  Until, finally I gave up and just settled for photographing real life.

Here are the pics:

This was taken on a gray, cloudy day, but you can see how light and open the room feels.  The view from the other direction is greener, but there are squirrels to watch in every direction.

In the foreground is the computer / writing area.  That splash of red is a beautifully embroidered Indian dress found at a thrift store (which hides the to-maybe-do-someday pile).  In the background is the designing / drafting area.

Here's a closer view of the design area with its (messy) drafting board.  I'd just finished coloring a pencil and ink rendering for a theater show, so those pencil drawers are still stacked on the board.

And here are the lovely, lovely (too expensive) boxes to store 11" x 17" drawings and collage papers, nested into custom cabinets a theater carpenter friend built me.  You can see how I pull out the boxes I need as I need them.  Above the lay-out counter are smaller wood box / drawers to hold misc. art and craft supplies: glue, wire, paperclips, index cards... all the small, sometimes weird, stuff I use.  One drawer is labeled "Bits and Bobs" which gives you an idea.

I cannot over-stress how much it helps to have an organized work space in a room you enjoy.

Here are earlier posts on studio or workspace issues, earliest first: Office Environment, Aaaand Spring Cleaning, External Factors, Reorganizing the Studio

Reorganizing the Studio

One key element in efficiently designing and drawing a show - not to mention other paperwork - is having an efficient office.

For me this means finally getting a theater carpenter buddy to build custom cabinets to hold specially-sized boxes to store drawings.

The standard for theater drawings is changing now as computer or CAD drawing becomes popular.  (Earlier POST.)  It used to be that a set designer would hand draw on 24" x 36" or larger paper, a size that is easy and cheap to store rolled.  With CAD I've seen all sorts of weird sheets, many too small to roll well.  I, myself, like hand drawing on 11"x17" sheets.  These store best flat.

I've been keeping drawings in clean pizza boxes: Pizza Hut "The Big New Yorker" boxes to be precise.

These boxes are slightly less than 17" clear inches inside though, making my drawings curl at the end but, being square, wasting room at the side.  After 130+ shows (plus architectural and other projects) and 40+ boxes, wasted space becomes important in my little studio.  So now I'm replacing squashed pizza boxes with spiffy rectangular ones from IKEA and The Container Store right-sized for my drawings.

Which all means removing every stick of furniture to replace cabinets under my layout table (and that table top too), then sorting through and reboxing every single file and drawing I've ever saved.

Yeesh!

Designer's Life - the External Factors

One important factor in the design process is the condition under which the designer works.  It shouldn't have any real effect on the quality of the product - how good a design it is - but it sure effects the designer's life.

A well designed studio makes working more efficient.  Good lighting, a proper chair, design tools within reach...  Improve your work space, wherever it is, and the more pleasant it is, the easier you'll find it to sit down to work.   I wrote on this topic in February, but I'm thinking of it again because, well, you can only control so much of your environment...

Unlike last time, the External Factor effecting my converted-porch studio is not snow outside, but heat: 100-110 degrees F lately.

I'm melting!  Drawing early in the morning is my only hope - drawing fast!