Cornerstone Church Mural Project

I started painting on walls when I was a kid.  I was fortunate to have parents who encouraged creativity.  They let me do what I wanted in my room as long as I paid for it.   So it started with stuff I cut out and taped to the walls or drew, etc, etc, but when I was in High School I got this idea to paint footprints across my ceiling.  My room was sort of a light peach tone and I couldn't afford to buy a gallon of paint to repaint it so I bought a quart of orange paint and painted my trim and the footprints orange.  Later on I added blue handprints and tiedyed a sheet to hang behind my bed.  I bought a pair of lamps for 5 dollars at a second hand store and made curtains and a bedspread.  It was my first full scale decorating project.

I kept painting walls, but never really considered that other people would ever want things painted on their walls but as I will repeat over and over again, creativity is a skill that can grow and develop over time.  Yes, there are people who have an open door to their own creative muscle, but I believe everyone is creative, some are just slower to discover where it is.  Some have had it stomped out early in their life, but everyone is creative and can grow in it.  I am convinced of that.  And my wall painting evolved over time ( although I still think the footprints were cool)

One of the largest mural projects I have done was for the preschoolers at Cornerstone Community Church which resides at Plymouth Bethesda Church  in Utica on Plant St.  should you ever want to see it in person.
I was given the freedom to do what I wanted and I wanted to do something that spoke to upstate NY and the wonderful creation that is around us.  So I decided to do a pond mural.  I research my projects, while keeping it childlike, I still want my creatures to be accurate.  I love nature, and wildlife, and the way ecosystems work.  This mural was so much fun for me to do.
http://s681.photobucket.com/albums/vv176/CathyattheRedDoor/Cornerstone%20Mural/?albumview=slideshow

Fighting with a tree...

It is spring and spring means dance production season.  I have worked the longest for the Leatherstocking Ballet, a local children's ballet company.  I got started doing this because my daughter was an original member of the company.  This year was the third time, (I think) that they did Alice in Wonderland.  I tried to get some pictures but once again I did not get as many as I wanted.  It is hard to photograph my stage work because I cannot always be at the actual production.  I was hoping to get my large garden drop, but they chose to use the smaller drop which was the first drop I ever did, (or maybe the second, because I think Humpbacked Pony came first.)
I like to use teenagers to help me paint these drops.  I like working with young people.  I actually like working with anyone who wants to try their hand at doing such a thing.  It is fun to help people create something, especially something big like a backdrop.  I have had interesting experiences with help, like the young girl who spent part of the time painting her feet.....with socks on.  I'm sure her mother was thrilled.  Of course I always have painted socks when I do a drop since I tend to wear a pair of socks while walking on the drop and at some point I always step in paint.  The rest of me gets painted also, I use my clothes for brush rags. 

There is something quite relaxing about drop painting.  I'm not sure relaxing is quite the right word, because it is very hard work, but your mind gets in a zone where it seems to hum along quite nicely and time flies by.  I paint standing up with either a roller or a brush at the end of a bamboo stick.  Bamboo works amazingly well.  It will split to hold the brush with rubber bands which keeps the flexibility of your painting instrument.  You can stand quite straight and you don't kill your knees or your back when you do it correctly.  The best drop painters can be amazingly detailed and exacting with that brush on the end of the bamboo pole.  But this world is changing also as more and more drops are being digitally printed. 

Alice involved quite a few pieces to be done, like the teaparty set.  There were moving doors, a floating leaf, rose bushes, and a tree.  The Cheshire Cat needed a tree.  It also had to be able to go through a door and be fairly easily moved onto the stage.  So using a ladder, chickenwire, muslin, and fake greenery, I constructed a tree.  Not quite the tree I envisioned, but it worked.  But sometime in the years of storage it got crushed and had to be repaired.  It was looking quite sad.  And I don't think it wanted to be repaired, but somehow it got there.   It is amazing the effects one can get with quite inexpensive materials.  The stage is truly a place of illusion...and lighting can change everything. 

I wonder often about the world of the stage, where ordinary people can become quite magical with the right costumes, props, makeup, scenery, and lighting.  And among these people are those who do have that inexplicable quality called talent that adds truth to the fantasy.  I love the storytelling and the magic, but I still wonder why we become so  enamored with the illusion and the people who populate it that we miss the real and true magic of people living everyday lives.  Maybe because we try so hard to perpetuate false impressions in our own lives, that we are something we are not.  Or maybe we need these people to act out these possibilities before us.  Or maybe it is just because the real world is hard to live in,  often painful and disappointing,  and this make believe world is so much easier for awhile. 

We work very hard to build a beautiful shell around ourselves, but like my tree sometimes that shell gets crushed and we end up being very lopsided and droopy.  I know I am constantly fighting with the tree that is me....I want me to be real and not illusion,  but oftentimes I just am chickenwire and muslin with the right lighting that makes me look good.  Instead of being authentic, I hide behind a facade, trying not to let my cracks show.

Creating a teapot....or my own personal rabbit hole

So being me, I tend to do many things at once or nothing at all.  While I was getting ready for my open house I was also working on a few things for Leatherstocking Ballet's production of 'Alice in Wonderland'.  I did not have much to do because this is the third time they have done this particular ballet.  But over time things get damaged or destroyed.  My teapot had fallen apart, some cups were damaged, a drawing was lost, and the tree had been crushed...the poor tree.

I did theater work all through my high school years.  Many of my friends were also involved in theater and several went on to professional careers.  I was onstage in one hs production, but my love is behind the scenes.  Working with sets in particular and sometimes with costumes.  But I never really put it together with my after high school life.  It never occurred to me that people are employed to do this kind of stuff so I didn't pursue that love any further after high school until many years later.

Children change a person's life, not just with diapers and care taking but by setting you on courses that you may not have had on your life map when you were young.  I really got into doing theater sets because of my children.  My son was a figure skater and my daughter was a dancer.  Both of these things involve performances and performances involve props and scenery.  One of the first really big productions I worked on was a big winter ice show that involved various things but the one I remember was the riverboat.  I really liked doing this. It was fun.

After moving to NY my daughter's dance studio did recitals that needed scenery.  I volunteered.  This began my love affair with duct tape.  What a problem solver it is.  These sets were done for very little money so often involved cardboard and duct tape.  As the dance studio grew it produced a dance company, the Leatherstocking ballet.  This is when I got up and close and personal with muslin backdrops and I opened my mouth and said " I could do one of these"  (Why I say these things I never know) So the next year I did.  It was for Alice.  Because the stage was smaller they no longer use that drop for the show but I remember it with fondness and fear.  There is nothing quite like staring at a 30 by 15' piece of fabric that you know cost a tidy sum and you have to paint a life size scene on it and you could totally screw up.  It turned out well and the next year I did another one.  I also did some flat scenery for another ballet.  The first time I had a carpenter to help me, but I also learned to build flats by myself.  I love tools...I am my father's daughter after all.

Anyway, I still felt insecure with what I was doing and I found out about Cobalt studios which has a summer intensive in scenic painting, so with the blessing of the ballet company I went and opened up my life to an amazing adventure.  I learned so much and had a lot of fun also.  Since then I do continue to paint for dance schools, and any other theater venue.  Maybe had I started sooner I would have done more in that area but I like where I am at here.

I think another reason why I like doing this is because I like to solve creative problems.  There is never enough funds so one has to learn to use very inexpensive materials to make the things you need, like newspaper, cardboard, and duct tape.  I also love children's productions even though they are nothing but time and work, it is an experience that will be remembered by those involved.



Watching the preparations for Alice this year has been fun.  I no longer have any of my own children involved and I am no longer someone's mother to most of the people involved.  I am just me, scenic artist.  I watch anxious and excited parents waiting in the wings, excited children, busy stagehands, tense directors, and it gives me joy.  Most of the people have no idea who I am when I walk by, or know that I am responsible for the setting of their child's production and I don't mind.  I just find it satisfying to see my work and know that I did that so that these children can perform for their friends and family and feel like professionals. 

And because of the interests and passions of my own children, I have added a dimension to my artistic self that I would never have explored further without them.

Stepping out of my Comfort Zone

I am an introvert.  Most people think this means shy.  It doesn't, it actually means I have an interior life rather than an exterior one.  I can spend hours and days alone.  I don't get charged up with lots of people around me.  It doesn't mean I don't like people, I do,  I love people...but if I am around people too much it wears me out.  I like my friends,  I like spending time with my friends, but I don't need to spend time with my friends to fill my days.  That doesn't mean I don't need my friends, I do, a lot.  An introvert can become too introverted and weird, and the mind does odd things.  But because , unlike extroverts, people can wear me out, I don't usually seek out my friends.  It's kind of like being between the proverbial rock and a hard place.  You need your friends to keep you sane, but if you are around your friends too much, you go insane from too much stimulation....Do you get what  I am saying?

A lot of creatives are introverts, we need to spend lots of time in our heads to be creative. But introverts are still a minority and not well understood.  Especially in this country, where we value extroverted qualities, and we encourage people to drop their introverted ones.  However that doesn't really work, so introverts can go through much of life thinking they are just not right.  They don't fit.  I didn't get this about myself for much of my life.  But then I started learning about myself and it opened up a whole new world for me.  I began to get myself.  Why I do some of the things I do.  And why other people oftentimes don't get me or even want to.

I found out that there has been research done on this when people started trying to learn about how people learn.  I found out that the introverted person processes information differently than extroverted persons do.  It can be mapped with brain imaging.  I think that is fascinating.

 I oftentimes have to act to be able to relate to people.  I am not good at small conversations...and I am not good at talking to people who don't talk.  If someone is silent, then I will be silent.  I do like to talk to people who like to talk, because I can respond fairly easily.  So to meet people  I have to pretend to be an extrovert, I have to work at it, and I always feel slightly fake, not because I am trying to be, but because it is not natural for me to put myself out there.  I like sidelines, observation, and listening.  I like to watch what people are doing, I like small groups....but the funny thing is, I really don't mind speaking in front of crowds.  But then I can have something prepared, something that I know and understand.  I like teaching, imparting knowledge, that sort of thing.

So I am saying all that to say this.  I am stepping out of my comfort zone by having an open studio event at my place of creativity, my home.  I need to do this.  I need to admit to the world that I am an artist, which is something that I really haven't admitted to myself.  I haven't done nearly enough, my ideas for art are enormous in my head... I consider my output miniscule compared to what I have ideas for.  But if I wait until I actually do enough I will never move forward in this endeavor.