Well, May's gone fast!

Here I was thinking I'd post a lot this month...after all, I was participating in Me-Made-May, which would be a great reason to keep up regular posting. Oh right, except for that fact where I was traveling to NYC for three weeks this month to work on a show. Which was absolutely amazing! It was a fantastic, mind-blowing experience, and I can only hope I'll get to work again with the terrific team I worked with for this project. A number of us from the lab basically came into an (already spectacular) existing show, did an experimental week-long run of adding several new technological components, and then packed everything back up and headed back to Boston. I learned so, so much during the process...it wasn't a resounding success, by any means, but we did an amazing amount with the short time and few people we had. It's taken me a week just to recover from the experience. I did keep up with wearing my Me-Made-May outfits (almost every day...had a couple of slips when I started running out of clean clothing), but I barely had time to sleep, so didn't get pictures of what I was wearing! We had many days of getting back to the hotel at 3-4AM, back at the theater by 9AM (or, if we were back at the hotel by 9PM, we all stayed up writing code together past midnight). By my "must have 8+ hours of sleep per night," that's an amazingly brutal schedule. It was such a terrific experience, though. Probably some of the best weeks I've had in my life (though I could have used a touch more sleep).

So! That's what you missed from me, this month -- living in the theater and writing thousands of lines of code! (I absolutely adore my work...) I also wore a number of outfits with self-made and refashioned things, and successfully managed to pack for two and a half weeks with me-made pieces in every outfit. The weather on the East Coast changed drastically, from cold and rainy a couple of weeks ago to a weekend in the 80's. And I randomly got a haircut today, basically because I'd been thinking a lot about it and was finally so overheated that I gave my boyfriend the scissors. I'm still not sure what I think about it; the last time I had hair this short was literally almost 20 years ago.

My hair also seems to have gotten a lot curlier/wavier since the last time it was this short.

Today's outfit is a refashioned dress and thrifted sandals...trying to dress up a bit after a couple of weeks of jeans and jean skirts and tops! (Parameters for my outfits in NYC included: need to be able to walk 30 minutes from hotel to theater, need to be able to deal with a range of weather conditions, need to work for tech work and sitting in our "control room" off the wood shop.)

And here's another outfit, from a couple of days ago... I refashioned this dress a bit ago. It used to have long sleeves and a giant lace collar. With both of those gone, it became a great piece for a summer day.

How has everyone's May been going so far? I hope it's been a good one!

Updates...

Just wanted to pop my head in and reassure you all that I'm still here! The last couple of months, my spare time primarily went to directing a musical for the university's musical theater group...we did a production of Children of Eden, a show based on stories from Genesis retold to be about parent-child dynamics. I've done some directing/choreography of smaller pieces, but this was my first time directing a full-length musical (for which I also did almost all of the choreography). Amazingly fun, and kept me amazingly busy!

I wanted to share just a couple of pictures from our final dress rehearsal. At this point, the set wasn't finished (the beautiful, dangerous Tree of Knowledge made out of cut metal leaves was still bare) and we didn't have lighting cues... but it's a taste of the show.


Adam and Eve are banished from Eden.


Noah and his family on the Ark


At the end, the cast appeals to the audience to find their own Eden.

What else has been going on? I've been working on the proposal for my Ph.D. general exams, due next week; basically you pick three areas that you want to study (that overlap to form the area of your planned dissertation research), read a lot in all of those fields, and then be tested (in written and oral exams) on your ability to think through problems in those areas and how those areas can connect. I'll be taking these exams in June.

I've been doing some cooking and baking and holding brunch parties...the thrifted waffle maker has been getting some good use. Also, fresh cranberries in waffles are amazing. The boyfriend and I had also been talking for a while about getting a bread maker, but weren't yet willing to pay the fairly steep prices for one. However, we found a machine in a local thrift store, with an "as is" tag on it... since the tag read in full "$2, as is," we had to get it and at least give it at try!


Result: bread! I can now make INFINITE BREAD with basically no effort! I've since tried a buttermilk dill loaf, which was really nice. Raisin bread will likely be the next attempt.

And now we're already coming up on the holidays much, much faster than I realize. I can't believe it's December -- the sun seems to be setting so much earlier than I remember happening in other years. The dark and cold have really hit me harder than normally; with it getting dark by 4:30, I have no idea when it's actually time to go to sleep. Strange! Anyone else looking forward to the return of more light and more warmth, or are you excited for snowstorms? (or both?)

FBFF: Following Your Dreams

This week's Fashion Beauty Friend Friday questions are about our dream jobs...Katy at was inspired by some recent posts about bloggers who are quitting their day jobs to focus on what they love (including Sal at Already Pretty). I'd been thinking a lot about this myself after reading a recent New York Times article on how the recession has given many people the opportunity to pursue their "dream jobs," only to find that the reality is much tougher than the dream. If you're interested in seeing what others have to say (I know I am!), the linkup is here. (EDIT: sorry for the broken link! Fixed now.)

1. Fess up - if you could do anything professionally what would it be?

My dream job is to start my own theater production company, with a focus on creating advanced technology for the theater. This company would both consult for other theater companies' productions (doing things like designing and implementing the technological aspects of productions) and allow us to produce some of our own work. We'd likely also create some interactive installations, as well as performances. As part of this work, I'd be not only writing software and developing hardware for performance contexts, but also doing theatrical design, running a theater company, and even choreographing some of my own pieces.

2. What draws you to this?

• This sort of job would combine so many of the things I love to do, and challenge all of my abilities. (In a way, this is like the work I am doing right now.) I can be creative, scientific, analytical, intuitive, imaginative, logical...I solve problems in many different domains. I've always been a jack-of-many-trades, and would love to have work that challenges me on so many levels.


• In everything I do (both technical and artistic), one of my favorite aspects is progressing from the hint of an idea to something actualized, made into a reality. For an example, my process of costume design progresses from initial ideas (perhaps images that echo the desired tone of the costumes and characters), to sketches and plans, to actual, physical pieces that come into being onstage. The same is true for choreographing a dance, writing a piece of software, etc. You start with a vision, and then you get to make it into something that actually exists.


• For me, the performing arts have a strong sense of community and collaboration. I saw a piece last semester by the director Peter Brook. The three actors in the piece had been working with Brook for years -- one of them since the 1970's. I think it would be AMAZINGLY awesome to have creative collaborations for over 40 years with someone you enjoy working with!


• Along those lines, it'd be amazing to have a lot of freedom over the people I work with and the projects I work on.


• I can be a bit obsessive with work. I sometimes find the idea attractive of working at a "job" 9-5 and then having the rest of the day to drop that and do whatever else I want. But really, I'd rather work that I eat, sleep, breathe. The work that is consuming and compelling, that fills my head with visions as I'm going to bed and new ideas when I wake up. That periodically becomes my life for stretches of time. (Granted, I do want other things in my life along with work (family, friends, and whatnot), so there will have to be some kind of balance...)


• And frankly, I love the theater. I love the creation of worlds, the development of new realities and experiences. The telling of stories, the possibility to really affect people and make them see their world in a new way. I want to be part of the theater's magic-making.



3. When did you first start dreaming about this ideal?
I started having this particular vision fairly soon after I started grad school three years ago and realized that I really could combine a lot of the things that I'm interested in. I wouldn't have to choose between my more analytical/logical/"intellectual" interests and my creative passions. I'd done some work in undergrad that started heading in the direction of merging my technical and artistic interests, but when I was applying to grad school I though the theater part of things wasn't necessary, that maybe I could leave it behind. Fortunately, thanks to the research group I ended up joining, my research has been brought squarely back to the theater. I'm surprised that I ever thought I could have left it. Others in my research group have also talked about the possibility of developing a performance company together after we graduate, so I may have a team to do this with.


Me calibrating a giant musical instrument/set piece from my group's latest opera. I didn't design the set piece, but I did do the interaction design...

4. What's holding you back from going all in?

Well, something that's not quite "holding me back" but is certainly limiting me is that I'm still in grad school. While my studies are hopefully preparing me for, I'm not at the point yet where I am free to start my own company (literally, my research assistant contract includes lines about how I am not allowed to have any other jobs either paid or unpaid).

Additionally, I know I'm definitely going to work through my own fears about trying to make money in the arts. As Veshoevius says in her post today on why flamenco will never be her day job, there's certainly the "fear of starvation." I'm terrified of having to support myself one project at a time...that I won't be good enough to make a living, that one really can't make a living in the arts, that no matter how hard I work it won't be enough. I hope it will be easier because I'll be coming in as someone who is also very skilled technically, and therefore in a more rarefied field (I've seen how much our group has paid some of the companies like this that we've work with!)...but I don't know. Being responsible for my own company will be a huge risk, and I'm sure plenty of times I'll be tempted to just get a regular 9-5ish job that gives me a regular salary and benefits and a steady stream of work. Who knows, I may also want to have one of these for a while as I get my feet on the ground.

5. Sometimes the first step is the hardest... what's one step you can take now on the way to realizing your dream?

Realistically, I think I'm in a very good place right now in terms of progressing toward this dream. I need to make sure I take advantage of the next three years of my graduate program to do more fascinating, fun research that makes other people excited about what I can do and want to hire me for projects/work with me. I need to continue making contacts in various theater companies, getting my name and abilities out there. I should try to set up collaborations with choreographers/designers/performance-makers that I really admire, while I'm still in school and have the name of the school supporting me. I also need to progress on getting that Ph.D. Probably, that means I should finish up this post and get back to the book I'm reading about performance theory as I prepare for my general exams...


An installation that I'd done with a colleague: 400 vellum butterflies suspended above a hallway on campus.
What about you? What are your career dreams?

We now return you to your regularly scheduled life...

I have survived the opera rehearsal period! And all of the technical elements I'm responsible for worked well enough. So that's a good thing. After a couple of weeks of daily 15-16-hour days in the theater (they let us in at 8AM and kicked us out by 11, or midnight if we'd arranged that beforehand...weekdays, weekends), we had an open dress rehearsal for an invited audience, packed up everything, and just put it on a boat for Europe, where the show will open in September. It's an amazing, crazy process. And now I am incredibly drained, physically and mentally. And have a fair amount to do before we go meet the show in mid-September. I took last weekend completely off, which helped a bit...

In the hot days of July, I really wanted to spend a lot of days looking like this (taken a couple of weeks ago before rehearsals picked up):


Shirt: Ann Taylor, thrifted. Skirt: Forever 21. Sandals: Wet Seal. Bag: thrifted.

But most of the time, I looked something more like this:


Top: BCBG, thrifted. Capris: Forever 21. Shoes: thrifted. Giant bag that could hold all my stuff going back and forth each day: thrifted.

Only imagine versions of this with a long sweater, because it was COLD in the theater! And with long jeans or black pants, because it was...cold in the theater. Still with the sneakers and flat shoes, though, because I had to be ready at any time to climb to the catwalks and do whatever was needed technically.

But it was all good. And we made things happen (though I can't take credit for the robots, I did make the set piece hanging in the second photo into a musical instrument, and have been helping the interactive visual elements):




Absolutely a traditional piece of theater, right?

Random outfits!

We are full swing into tech on this show! We finally moved everything into the theater on Thursday; it's amazing seeing the set that we've seen drawings/renderings/models of for years be put up in real physical space, in an actual theater! And I absolutely love being in theaters. I feel that theaters are places that are designed and made for storytelling, for the construction of other worlds, other universes. For intimacy and for entertainment and for virtuosity and for emotions. There's not just the actual physical space (which is generally really interesting), there's also the traces of the spaces that have been created inside that space, and the anticipation of those that are yet to be created. (Every time I end up in a theater, I know I'm doing the work I should be doing...)


Oh, right. I wear things, too.


I wore this outfit sometime last week. These pictures were taken in the warehouse space we've been renting for all the exciting robot-building and such. The top is Ann Taylor (thrifted), the skirt is INC (also thrifted), and I'm not sure what the shoes are (thrifted, again). I'm really interested by how I've begun to wear a majority of outfits that are mostly/entirely thrifted. I think this is because my shifting style has been helped along by thrifted clothing, especially the dollar-a-pound...

Also interesting: since I've been reading style blogs/paying more attention to my daily style/blogging myself, I've been much more aware of what I see people around me wearing. I ride the T or walk down the street and am just amazed at all of the beautiful, stylish, creative people I see expressing themselves through their clothing. I love seeing how the details of their outfits show me who they are, or who they're trying to be, or who they want to be, or who they accidentally/purposefully are portraying.


And this outfit was yesterday, actually. I keep trying to find things to handle the heat waves we've been having. The shirt is thrifted BCBG, the skirt is thrifted, and the shoes are thrifted Chinese Laundry. The earrings were a gift from my college roommate a few years ago.

Hope everyone has had a nice weekend, without too much work to do! (did I mention I was at the lab/theater most of the day?)