Spring Fever

Today I went to USITT... it was a trip. It's a lot more low-key than SETC, which probably has something to do with the lack of high schoolers and high-strung actors. But, what USITT lacks in stress, it makes up with over-stimulation. The Expo Floor is full of all the possible theatre companies and theatre schools... it's amazing. And if you're lucky enough, you get to pick up some fun swag from some of these companies. This year I scored an awesome tote bag from Syracuse Scenery made out of stage drapery. I also managed to get a USITT coffee cup.

But the thing that I really want to talk about is the fact that all of these conferences (SETC & USITT this year, KCACTF in past years) do one really unfortunate thing for me: make me feel incredibly inadequate. I look at work done by professionals and my peers and all I think is that I can't draw that well. While I figure I've got just as good design ideas as the next person, my inability to convey them through my sketches, well, that is a problem.

It makes me think about the holes in my education. I've gone through 7 years of schooling to be stamped with the coveted MFA diploma in just 6 weeks (yikes) and what do I have to show for it? The same level of sketching capabilities and, in some ways, less finesse in my model-making, the one place I feel like I had real talent leaving Grinnell. It also doesn't help when I get to catch up with my Grinnellian peers, one of which is finishing her first year of graduate school and one who is in his first year of freelancing (and headed to Prague in May). All I could think was that I haven't made any strides this way. I also don't know that I'm cut out for freelancing... I wonder what it is that I'm doing all of this for. What have I been striving for? What is this all worth? Am I going to try to make it by freelancing, hoping to be a resident designer, or becoming a teacher? What is it worth? Is this just a quarter-life crisis?

Or just the ramblings of a tired, overworked graduate student?

Feminist Validation

Almost a year ago I wrote a post I titledTempestuas Validation. In it I explored how not being named one of the winning entries at KC/ACTF had crushed my ego. It was introspective but fairly mopey. Since writing that I went to the SETC conference in Kentucky and was awarded second place in the graduate scenic design competition for my design for The Seagull. And I researched and wrote a paper about the ideas of feminist design. Which I submitted to three conferences. A few weeks ago, MATC sent me a rejection e mail.

Today, 6 weeks away from the 2011 SETC convention in Atlanta I received an e mail congratulating me on receiving the Young Scholar's Award for my paper on feminist design. Even before I get to the convention where I will have 2 designs in the design competition (Oklahoma! and The Waiting Room) I have already won. My work and my deep thoughts about design and the design process have been validated. I am going to present, to goodness knows how many people, about my search for feminist design. I have been having trouble sitting still and concentrating this afternoon...

I think the most rewarding thing about the news is not the $225 cash prize, but that I am starting to feel the crossover of my academic pursuits and thoughts and my artistic endeavors. I am starting to feel like an artist-scholar. I can show how theatre design doesn't have to be brainless and about making a pretty picture, but about dramaturgical research and in-depth analysis of how our world operates. This is exciting, and I am, admittedly, geeking out. I love all of the academic work I've had my hands in over the years. I honestly miss it when I have been told to just produce sketches. In a perfect world I would be able to do lots of research and mull things over before designing the scenery or costumes for a play. Sadly, theatre doesn't afford that kind of luxury (and very few people would take it if they could, instead cramming more jobs together in order to pay the bills).

All of this is interesting as I start work on my next and final design at UNCG, costumes for Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending. I'm very excited about the project because the director wants to break away from the expectations of it being a realistic play, instead delving into the illusions and motifs and the undertones of the Orpheus myth (and racial and economic commentary being made). As the costume designer, I really feel like I'm going to be able to apply some of the feminist design questions. Things, finally, feel like they are coming together. It is a good way to wrap up my MFA. Everything seems to be culminating and I'm having to bring all of my education and skills to bear. Hopefully with very exciting results.

From Oklahoma! to Charlotte

Dear Readers (aka CT and Jenna), I had a great idea for a post. For about an hour and then it dropped from my mind. There are other things that I could write on but I fear they are too controversial and would be better left off of this public forum. So instead I offer you two things of note in my creative/theatrical life right now:

1. Oklahoma! is well underway, though painting is taking me much too much time. There has been a bit of an extreme learning curve trying to figure out how to paint new drops. I am working on drop #3 and it is taking a LONG time because not only is it new, it has to be painted relatively lightly so that it has a bit of transparency to it as it stands in for the cyc. The picture to the left, there, is the mid-stage drop, which was drop #1.

The other interesting bit pertaining to Oklahoma! (which opens in 3.5 weeks... have I mentioned that?) is that I am making a concerted effort to talk about it. I made sure I did a presentation to the cast, I am planning on bringing my model in for the stagecrafts class, and I have volunteered to be on the Q&A panel at the Super Saturday performance for local high schools on Oct 2. The reason is more than wanting to be self-centered about my work, but I feel like talking about a design is helpful for the next generation of designers as well as me. If I can explain my concept to people who are just starting to understand what a design concept is, then I feel I'll be able to articulate well to a director and the rest of the design team. Furthermore, there is so much more to a design than just what you see on stage, and I know that I want to pick the brain of designers after I see a particularly stunning production. Thus, I am offering my time to help my design live on as more than just a stage picture. I don't know if it will really be valuable, but, as Oklahoma! is my thesis, I figure this kind of work can't hurt.

2. I am also beginning to plan for the theatre conferences next year. I vowed after the last two years to not get caught off-guard by them, both in time-management and financial responsibility. I have decided that I will not attend KC/ACTF next year, in part because I feel I've out-grown it and also because it is all the way in Florida, which is a bit of a trek. Instead I am focusing my efforts on SETC, which was a great conference last year in Kentucky, and I have high hopes for the 2011 convention in Atlanta. I am also hoping to make it to USITT this year because it is in Charlotte, which is so close that it would seem a waste not to make an effort to take part in this professional theatre conference and expo. I'm honestly really excited about conferences this year and feel they are very important as part of professional development and learning. I am also working on polishing my feminist design paper from last semester in order to submit to the SETC emerging scholars panel and also the MATC emerging scholars work. Fingers crossed that perhaps I'm on my way to carving out an academic niche for myself. (And that I don't go bankrupt in the process).

That's about it on this front. I'm thinking I might post my work from my independent study this semester soon, so look for more artistic updates. But for now, I'm going to go wash Ultramarine Blue paint out from under my nails for the third time today. And perhaps my brilliant idea about a good blog post will come back to me. (And this time I'll write it down so I don't lose it. :P)

Tempestuous Validation

Just returned from this year's Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival (KC/ACTF) in Region IV (that's the Southeast). Compared to last year where UNC-Greensboro was the host school, I felt pretty detached from the whole thing. It also seemed to be very diminished in size as the economy problems have started to trickle down into school budgets (I know UNCG felt it).

I took my design for Shakespeare's The Tempest which I completed in my Scenography Seminar last spring semester. Basically, a Scenography Seminar means that we completed designs for all three areas: scenic, costume, and lighting. We spent four months with the play, built half inch models, and designed 30 costumes. And then it sat in the office until told that the school was footing the bill for us to go to KC/ACTF this year.

Dusting off the model (and I mean that literally), I was struck by the work that I had put into it and the joy I had found creating all of the little details of my dilapidated warehouse space. I felt very good about bringing it to competition in the regional paper project division (the competition I took home first place for La Boheme in last year). Even when the poor thing was practically destroyed in transit, I was hopeful. (I was able to rebuild it just fine).

Then on Friday night, the awards were announced, and I was left sitting in the audience while my three colleagues (the only other UNCG students attending the festival) were called onstage to be recognized for their work. I was dumb-founded, flabbergasted, and hurt. In part because I had felt so good about my work and the judge's response to it and in part because the work that was awarded first place was presented haphazardly and looked like he'd pulled it all out of his backpack before tacking it to the wall. To be honest, I drove everyone back to the hotel and then sat in the car and cried. And called my aunt.

I felt humiliated but also incredibly stupid for letting something like this tear down all of the confidence that I had about myself. I knew going into this competition that I had set the bar high last year by winning so out-of-the-blue-like. And yet I felt robbed by not even getting an Honorable Mention. After sleep, some inner soul-searching, and seeing the designs as we took our own work down to travel home, I've come to the conclusion that in the end the best designs were awarded prizes, despite their presentation quality. The designs fit the play very well (or so the judges had said) and were well-thought out and at least mostly executed well as far as the modeling technique is concerned. So what if the students hadn't been coached on how to create meticulously laid out presentation boards of research and process? Ultimately, their artistic thoughts were clear and deserved recognition.

But what to do with my own feelings of inadequacy? How, after seven months of being very proud of my work and ideas can something as innocuous as this award tear down my confidence in just a short five minute time span? Why is it that I need validation for work that has come out of my ten years of scenic design, and many hours individually scoring brickwork with an X-acto blade and reading glasses?

I think it's a cultural thing, as we are taught from a young age the importance of winning and hearing that we are the best. I also think, artistically, there are so many times that it's a shot in the dark to put something out there that will be judged so subjectively. I spent over 15 minutes talking to one gentleman during the design Meet & Greet in which he poked all kinds of holes into my modern interpretation of the piece (which was encouraged by our professor, not something I came up with solely on my own!). This guy seemed generally offended that I had deigned to take Shakespeare's play off of a literal island and place it somewhere that perhaps undercut the lines regarding the necessity of a boat to arrive there. And on the one hand it was frustrating to have him admonish me for claiming perhaps it was a metaphoric boat, but I was thankful to see that I could hold my ground even after six or so months of complete removal from the project.

This kind of thing always makes me wonder if this is truly the field that I want to wade into for sure. My skin is not thick regarding my work. In fact, I find it very difficult to separate myself from criticism of my artistic work. Why, oh why, do I want to spend years trying to squeeze every ounce of creative juice from my brain only to risk complete destruction of my psyche if the director, actors, audience, or critics tear it apart? I'm not sure if I know the answer to that. But I can say that as the years have passed I've become better at bouncing back. I've found joy in what I do that cannot be touched by outside comment. And I know that is all the validation that I can count on, even if it isn't all I will ever need.