The Fundamentals of Drawing

Once upon a time, in a classroom nestled amongst the cornfields of Iowa, a young woman learned about the fundamentals of scene design by putting pencil to paper. As this young woman continued her education in the art of design, she was directed to put her mad photoshopping skillz to use in her representations of her imaginative designs. But this young woman was sad. She didn't want to spend hours on the computer wrestling with the right brush size or calibrating the screen to the printer output. She felt angry and betrayed to be told that the wave of the future was in computer generated artistic output. So she decided to stop being a scene designer and work an office job inputting numbers, since she'd have to stare at a computer screen for hours on end either way.

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Okay, stupid story above aside, this is a dilemma that I face. I liken it to the philosophy about photography skills I learned in high school:

You have to learn the basics of dark room developing and manual camera adjustments before you can successfully navigate the digital tools that are becoming available in the photographic industry. Of course, one might argue that my teacher was just trying to explain away demands of the high school students to learn with the most cutting edge equipment, but I do believe that this philosophy is true because, having grown up with Photoshop on our home computers because my parents are graphic designers, it was not until I was in the dark room that I started to understand what burning and dodging was and how it could be applied digitally.

As I come into contact with undergraduates here at my illustrious institution who are being called upon to use Photoshop and turn to me with simple questions, it becomes difficult for me to teach them the program without trying to draw their attention to the real-life processes to which the Photoshop tools correspond. How can they understand that there are about fifteen ways that you can change highlight and shadow in Photoshop, if they do not understand how, in real-life, you might try to adjust those things in a photo dark room, with a pen, pencil, paper, collage, etc? If you can't walk, how do you propose you can run (or, more accurate an analogy, use a treadmill)?

It frustrates me to no end the emphasis that is being placed on digital output in theatrical design without spending time to make sure that the manual output is up to industry standards. Take drafting, for instance: many undergraduates do not know how to produced easily readable, accurate hand-drafting, so how can we expect them to create a good drafting packet in AutoCAD? Sure, they can tell you where all of the drawing buttons are and probably give you accurate information, but because they don't really understand what the purpose of line-weight is, or how best to visually indicate the sectioning of architectural and scenic elements, their computer output is going to be sloppy and difficult to process.

I think that knowing the fundamentals of the craft--being able to draw figures, accurate (or at least believable) perspective designs, evoking mood with chiaroscuro--is the only way that generating digital output moves beyond just basically relaying information and becomes an art itself. I don't know how many times I look at digital renderings and think they look flat and two-dimensional, like old-school digital animation. And digital animators start with the basics, gauranteed! Why, then, are we not spending more time teaching young designers how to get their great, imaginative images on paper rather than fussing with computer programs? The great thing about my generation and those after me is that our learning curve with computers is off the charts. Many of the people coming behind me were practically born with a mouse in their hand. We should shift our focus away from the how-to's of digital imaging software (Photoshop, AutoCAD, etc) and make sure that the how-to's of manual artistic expression are strong. Then tell the students the same thing can be done on the computer and sit back. Trust me, they'll figure it faster than you can say "create a new layer."

What You Can't Have if You Are a Woman in Theatre

I have house-fever. Not baby-fever, but house-fever. I dream of owning a house, what it will look like, how the sun will pour through the windows, and how I will have friends over and they will admire the art on my walls as I feed them fresh baked-goods.

These daydreams play a role in answering the question, "What happens after graduate school?" which I have been getting far too much lately. I have a few ideas for specific projects up my sleeve, but what I really want to do is find a place that I want to live for at least five years, and become a part of the community. And maybe buy a house (though, in my dreams, house can be synonymous with apartment, so home-ownership isn't necessary, just a great place to call my own). This magical place I want to live will likely have a large theatre community because it will likely be a large city, but to be honest, my desire to settle somewhere for a long period of time isn't about theatre.

And there is the problem.

To be sure, the idea of a house and community lay the groundwork for starting a family someday, and I've been grappling with how I will balance creating a home and family with the crazy hours and travel schedule set forth by my chosen profession. And then I read about female scene designers and how many of them hardly have functioning marriages, let alone children. Articles that talk about these fantastic women usually touch on their choice to move away from the traditional female role of mother, deciding that motherhood is not their primary role or altogether unnecessary.

I wonder about this choice before me because I've worked with many amazing women who seem to have found a way to balance their lives. Both have had incredibly supportive partners, but I also feel like it goes back to the old statement "where there is a will, there is a way." Nevertheless, their conviction to have it all has been questioned. People wonder if the children are getting enough time with mommy or whether it's okay to miss important moments in your child's life because of the strict schedule theatre keeps.

The choice laid before women in theatre I feel is unfair, and not just because family and theatre should not be mutually exclusive. Instead, I think this notion that women are going to or should put family first keeps women from powerful creative positions. Or, people wonder at the unnaturalness of a woman with no desire to have a family and put her career first. I don't think mothers or fathers want to be absent from their child's life, but it is somehow okay for a father to work and travel too much. Similarly, society hardly bats an eye at a successful, child-less man.

To bring it back to my house-fever, is it so wrong of me to want to anchor my work in a community rather than idealize a nomadic existence, hopping from theatre to theatre following some sort of success trajectory? Some of my mentors and peers think I will be selling myself short (unless, of course, that community is New York...). I suppose my priorities are different, because I have always valued a strong arts presence in communities and have appreciated theatres that nurtured local artists rather than always flying in outsiders. I also hope that having roots in a community will keep me grounded if I travel, and I think the same goes for having a family waiting at home. Sure, compromises will have to be made because the schedule of a daredevil child is not going to mesh well with that of first dress. Life never really seems to want to work within the confines of a production calendar anyway, but just because I have an X-chromosome does not mean I can't have a successful, fruitful career as a designer and consider or even start a family. And if I have to face that choice, then my male counterparts do too.

Flowery Thank Yous

Today's post is brought to you by a recent art project that I did as a thank you for some friends. Watercolor flowers adorned the mix-CD covers; it seems that Georgia O'Keefe continues to inspire me.









Expect some more ruminations on theatrical design to return next week as I dive deeper into my research and commentary on feminist design in the next couple of days.