Kitchen Dog Fund Raiser Auction

 Celebrate Kitchen Dog Theater's 30th Anniversary (30 = Pearls) - the grittiest theater in Dallas!

Join the auction HERE or donate if you wish!

Coming Soon...

 Once again I'm behind on writing here - but at least this time it's because I been doin' stuff!

(Not theater stuff, don't get overexcited, but stuff at least.)  Latest project is a rag doll mermaid for a young friend of mine.  Lots of Minecraft city building on Illias HERE, some basement plans, and some seriously frustrating Sketchup modeling of a beach house!  (Roof geometries are defeating me.  So from now on I decree "Only Flat Roofs!") 

And now vaccinated, there start to be Out Of The House Adventures!  I can't tell you how welcome these are.  And, pretty soon, I'll report on my big trip to an art museum to see the architectural exhibit there.  Fun times!

 Though there's no theater on my desk at the moment, I do still have an audience:

Bobblehead Bard says "Hi!"

Olden Times

 I just stumbled across this 2005 NPR story on theater design that featured WaterTower Theatre in Addison.

This was the first time I was interviewed on radio.  A surreal experience.  The interviewer, Bob Mondello, was nice... and about six feet taller than I was.  The  sound stage was tiny - barely two chairs wide - but the microphone was huge - the size of a cantalope.  And I brought a drawing - "for radio?" he asked, but I had some logic actually, I wanted him to understand the design so he could ask better questions, which, afterwards he admitted was helpful.  

I haven't listened to it yet, so listen with me...

Flexible Theater Design and Intimacy Audience

A Fresh Spring Start

Took a walk by a lake today - all fresh breeze, the jingle of boat rigging, glow-fresh green leaves, and the crunchy remains of Easter cascarones underfoot, bits of colored egg shells and confetti.  

I wish you all an equally happy expression of Spring!

In Texas everyone over the age of 16 is now eligible for the vaccine.  Like trying to explain the feeling of Spring, I cannot express the lightness and relief of the vaccination, of knowing you're protected and that you are no longer a danger to others.  I was carrying at least ten pounds of concern around with me all this long year.  

Please, go get the shot - it's the easiest way to lose excess weight that I know of!

Feel the Spring breeze...  

A Past How-To on Set Building

 I happened across an old web page of mine, a How-To on set building aimed at beginning theater designers and builders: "Theater Set Questions Answered!".  You can check it out HERE on Hub Pages.

I'm starting to read a new (to me) book, Stage Designers in Early Twentieth-Century America, by Christin Essin.  More a history and cultural study than a visual essay, it's very interesting so far...

Other intriguing reading and watching lately: comedian Colin Jost's memoir A Very Punchable Face; David Sedaris's memoir Theft by Finding; essays/demonstrations/rants/performance art? YouTube videos by Karolina Z'ebrowska (for a funny version of a film costume design production meeting watch "Boobs"); and the vid essays of Jacob Geller.  I particularly recommend (to scenic design fans) "The Intimacy of Everday Objects," "Control, Anatomy, and the Legecy of the Haunted House," and also "Art Theft."  But, honestly, they're all great.

If you're missing production meetings, here below is a tiny taste.  (Honestly, I've always been a bit shocked by the blunt talk by costume designers... this is actually kinda... mild.)

Addendum:  How to document a dream - the resin diaramas of Thalasso hobbyer HERE.

Here's a First

 A second post on the same day?  From Ms-Too-Depressed-To-Blog?  But then I found this quote from playwright Tracy Letts (in the NY Times):

"I can’t do the computer theater, it’s too depressing for me, and I’ve turned down a couple of on-camera jobs because I am just as scared of this virus as I was a year ago. Creatively, I’m lost." ...  "I’m guessing there are some other artists who identify."

THIS.

I identify.

Possibly the Most Covid Day Yet, But in a Good Way

 One day last week I started the day with a wild party!

In Minecraft (so a virtual party), but a party!  We wore party hats, had a bounce house, party favors (rainbow color changing sheep), cake!  Well, we couldn't actually eat the cake (because virtual) but we fed the cake to virtual pandas who could virtually eat the virtual cake.  Other refreshments.  We inaugerated the Palace Ballroom with a dance party!  Real music from virtual jukeboxes and real dancing by virtual parrots!  Minecraft avatars can only sorta bob up and down, but we'll call it "dancing."  And we built a piano... all the stuff you do at parties!  

It was surprisingly fun.

And then I put on my mask and left to get my second shot of the miraculous vaccine.

What could be more happy-pandemic than that?

Switching topics slightly: here's the last of those Minecraft avatar portraits, this time for my guy.

I like the way Bart here is completely unaware that if he succeeds in maiming this kraken-squid that he's going to shipwreck and die...  Also, as a fellow player pointed out, Minecraft squids are non-aggressive creatures in the first place.

This portrait series has been huge fun to do!

The world I'm working in, Illias, started as a pandemic project.  It certainly became an important project for me during thiese last months.  Sanity saving probably.

If you're curious, HERE is a link to Astrophagy's You Tube videos.  And a little taster vid, "Running the Canals of Illias":

In... I almost typed "the real world", but this was, in fact, virtual too, kinda, Kitchen Dog Theater recently produced an online video play Last Ship to Proxima Centari.  (I should have promoted this here earlier - but never mind, check them out to see up-coming theater!)  I wasn't involved with this one, but I enjoyed it and thought it worked pretty well in the online format.  So theater IS continuing in some fashion.  

I did take part in their most recent Craft  episode, to talk about the development and design of the then new play End Times.  Two more episodes coming! May 20th and June 17th.  I really enjoyed being part of the conversation between the playwright, the director, and the designers.  The old video clips of me were strange to watch though: I don't think I said anything particularly dumb, but I did look younger and My Studio Was So Clean!  It was uncanny!

It made me feel homesick for theater.  

But theater is coming back.  And meanwhile there's a Minecraft city to build!

Again With The Portraits

Still amusing myself with Minecraft avatar portraiture... 

Drawings by Clare Floyd DeVries

Thanks to MCXopjesh and redsatchmo#6147 for letting me share these sketches here. (And to the others: Astrophagy, John73x, and Dolphinboy19 for the previous post.)

Don't you love people's nom de internets?  Online tags are always interesting!  

But, once email became mostly a work utility, I noticed all the wilder or ruder tags got very... boring.  Just too embarrassing to explain to employers or grandmas.  So a colorful online personality gets reduced from a weird tag on Reddit to... j.doe57481@bigbiz.com on gmail.  Just sad.