Siege - Days 38 and 39

Yesterday was interesting.

We staged a bit of a jail break here... at least as far as our favorite pizza place for take-out.  (Well and my car got its battery charged, because it's been a week and a half since last used.)  

So we got take-out and then very daringly ate it while still hot in the nearby park.  All the while expecting Authority to tell us to go home.  It was delicious.  And then we went home.  We were careful not to throw the box away there but to take it home, not to get our pizza joint in trouble.  

Wild excitement!  The pizza crew were so glad to see us - recognized us, which I didn't expect - and gave us a free salad and the tip to ask for the "locals discount" in future.

Grimaldi's.  Best pizza.  Coal fired and worth the drive from here.  (Besides, the car needed charging.)  Our next restaurant take-out, like our very first, will have to be from our Momo's Italian Kitchen on Forest Lane.  So far, for obvious reasons, we've been strictly limiting trips out of the house, so when we do go, we make sure it's to places we love.

public domain image

The other excitement-ish yesterday was a tele-vid interview for WaterTower Theater.  Not quite sure what they're going to do with it.  It continues to amaze me how long it takes to set up lighting, clean up the background etc. etc. to get ready for these things and still the app jambs up in some way (choice of sound / no picture or picture / no sound this time).   

Today so far is new-routine: breakfast, newspaper, greet the plants (the mint shivers when it sees me now - I've taken up mint julips), email, blog, write on the book  (rewriting "Chapter 7 - Documentation" because who knew computer drafting would remain a thing?).  Later, lunch.  (Meals have become big 'round here.) More writing.  Dinner  (See?)  A walk.  Read.  Bed.

Not a bad new routine.  

Siege - Days 26 and 27 Eastertide

Happy Easter!

It's a perfect Easter morning here: overnight showers have stopped and blue sky peeks through fluffy white clouds, sunbeams make the new leaves glow impossibly green and sparkling wet.  The strange little flowers that have been returning from bulbs planted thirty years ago are blooming - they look a little alien - but the red-orange begonia looks homely and familiar.  The tomato plants are getting scary-tall!

It's Spring.  It's Easter.

Enjoyed a Quarantine-Easter brunch with dyed eggs (we were out of red food coloring so used beet juice for a pretty pink) plus just a few chocolate eggs.

What else has been happening?

Well, Kitchen Dog Theater put out a call for home videos for a project... letting our fans and theater family know what we've been doing in our unexpected off time.  Here at the DeVries Architecture, Theater, Design, and Video Studio we - eventually - pulled off our 30 seconds of cinematography.  (It would have been easier to have sketched my video by hand... as a series of storyboards maybe?  Seriously!)  But it's in the can.  A virtual can.

I don't think I want to become a vlogger.  But maybe Kitchen Dog's video will be as much fun as Tom Hanks' SNL quarantine video collage...

More satisfying than video...  Books!

Just read a very good, useful, even wise book on creative work: Keep Going by Austin Kleon.  I'd read a good review so ordered it (through Half Price Books, based here in Dallas), but I'll admit to feeling a little dubious when the mini-sized book dropped out of its mailing envelope.  Sorry, but its size and zippy graphics just screamed those gimmicky gift books you find by the checkout stand...  Fooled me!  Because this is full of good stuff: advice, observations, quotes, and (while recommending old books) this book is very of this moment .  Honestly, exactly the book I needed to find at this time.

I won't try to boil-down this already slim book for you - just read it - but tidbits?  One favorite quote:

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

Annie Dillard

And the unexpected image of Salvador Dali taking naps... but with a teaspoon in his hand so that the spoon's clattering fall would wake him in the midst of a dream-like state, the better to paint his dream-like surrealist paintings.

That Radio Thing

A while back (HERE) I wrote about being interviewed for our local National Public Radio station KERA.  It required getting a haircut.

Well, the piece finally came out Friday!  The first of 52 artist profiles.  And this is the link at Art and Seek: HERE

A profile complete with a dorky they-made-me-take-it! selfie.

Really, they made me take this! selfie.

Haircuts for Radio and Other Weird Things

It's been a busy month or two.

At the moment I'm set dressing Wait Until Dark for Stage West and construction is starting on The Winter's Tale for Trinity Shakespeare, while I'm starting sketches for Circle's Don't Talk to the Actors.

Wait Until Dark, Stage West, design by Clare Floyd DeVries

But what was that about haircuts?

Yesterday a videographer for our local public radio station, KERA, followed me around the stage at Stage West, watching me safety-pin up giant (16' long!) B&W photocopies of the outside-the-basement-window view.  When this got boring (set designer with nice hair cut climbs ladder again!), the TD took us on an Alice's rabbit hole tour through the darkened corners of the theater.  We looked at ancient steel safes and old sofas up nifty counter-weighted folding attic stairs... Fun!  Explore the Theater could make a great virtual reality game.

I think the talk got more interesting too as the TD and I back-n-forthed over scenic problems.

Why all this videoed ridiculousness?

Well, KERA's Art & Seek has gotten a grant to document an artist a week for a year in a how-the-work-happens sort of thing.  As I understand it, there'll be a little bit on the radio and more (like vid) on the website.  Cool idea, huh?

Anyway, 52 weeks, 52 artists... starting, oddly, with me.

So that's weird.  On Monday they're coming by my studio to interview me.  (I'll be vacuuming till then.)  

More weirdness was my battle with the big rendering for the big big backdrop for The Winter's Tale.  I mean, I can design and I can draw... but painting... meh.  So I struggled with it for hours trying to meet the deadline - to the point where, when family arrived, I had to ask 'em whether the result was terrible or okay.  I couldn't tell.  (The consensus was "use it.")

Backdrop for The Winter's Tale, Trinity Shakespeare - design by Clare Floyd DeVries

So there I was yesterday, presenting this alleged artwork to a real painter - the scenic artist - with, as it happened, another very good scenic designer / painter whose opinion I respect looking over my shoulder.  

All he said was, "Colored pencil?"

"Watercolor pencil and colored pencil," I answered.  "But don't look at the technique, just the color."

Actually, that scene shop is absolutely stuffed with good painters who will, naturally, look at my, you should forgive the expression, "technique."  

I have now vowed to take an official watercolor class.

Copyright Has Never Been This Cute

This morning on BoingBoing (a terrific site BTW) there was this lovely video: created by You Tube to explain copyright to video folks, it also pretty well explains the law as it applies to most visual arts and music.

Best of all, it is explained by puppets.

Wouldn't ALL law be more palatable if explained by puppets?

Maybe that explains those British wigs in court?  And maybe in the U.S. we should insist that all lawyers similarly dress up funny or use puppets or, preferably, mime?  (Having to act out, say, "intestate" would make lawyers simplify their arguments!)

Watch it HERE.

My earlier posts on copyright issues HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

A Glimpse of Smokey Joe's Cafe

On WaterTower Theater's website there's a video interview with the director, Terry Martin.  At about the 1:45 mark, there's a glimpse of my sketch for the set and then video of the set itself: scroll down to Conversations@WTT: Terry Martin & SMOKEY JOE'S CAFE   HERE.

Sweeney Todd Video

A little YouTube tidbit about the Prague Playhouse production of Sweeney Todd, HERE.

Books Gone Wild!

Oh! I wish I had a video clip thingie here!  Watch this terrific "Organizing the Bookcase" video.