Artomatic roomies and a 18 foot tall tower

I have had lots of roommates in my life (I have a little brother, so it started early...) and I can add one more to the list: Andrew Wodzianski. That's right, I will be sharing a room at Artomatic with the ArtbyJared "Head Puppeteer"...


Check out a view from our room:

And here's a diagram of the same space...yep, its going to be a very small pillow fight...

I have another diagram for you...its of a Rapunzel tower that will be going into the lobby of Imagination Stage...

Here is the proposed tower in an early color sketch

Hopefully this time next week I will be showing you the final product!

 
And now, for no particular reason, a picture of a very happy Sookie:

Ballroom Boxing progress and Imagination Stage Open House Carpentry

Ive spent this past week building scenery for the Imagination Stage Open House on September 10th. I am at the carpentry stage right now, which is always a bit of a slog for me...I've often said that "I hate carpentry, but its what holds up the paint"...

Rapunzel's Castle

 I have tried to build the entire open house out of recycled/repurposed materials. For example, the door in the center of Rapunzel's Castle was salvaged from the Wind in the Willows set strike. I've cut a door in the top left panel of the door for the Rapunzel puppet to be operated from.

Narnia Wardrobe

The Wind in the Willows door has yielded two re-purposings...the back of the door became the split doors of the wardrobe for the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. I will be building the rest of the show this week, so you should have a full accounting of the show by the next blog post (two shows down, three to go!)

The week, of course, was punctuated by the arrival of hurricane Irene on Saturday. Fortunately we got through it with minimal damage. In fact, the only thing that really seemed to be damaged was our BBQ grill, which fell off of our new backyard deck.

During the Hurricane I was able to make some more progress on Ballroom Boxing...

The background changed a good bit...I decided that I wanted to go with a softer, looser background in order to keep the focus on the ring at center. A couple of days after Irene, I started to block in the main characters again, and started making some decisions about lighting....

I've started adding some of the audience members (particularly the Robot) My intent has been to populate the audience with a rouges gallery of characters, but KT is particularly adamant that they all remain monkeys...I'd be interested in hearing what you think...on the one hand I can see the value of making it consistent parallel monkey universe (a "planet of the apes" if you will) but on the other hand, there is something so awesome about this fight night that I don't want anyone to feel left out...

Lastly, I am designing a small set piece for this Fall's Hope Operas Of course, its a pile of poop. Ah, showbiz!

Possessed animals, but little paint on canvas...

Warning: Pet photo for no reason!

Sookie and Empeno both demonically possessed...

Sometimes things just move in slow motion...that is, you are working and getting stuff done, but you have little that is physical to show for it. Well, these last few weeks have been a bit like that. For example, this week a writers meeting was called for a project that I was working on that I was reluctant to share on this blog because I didn't want to jinx it. Well, the result of that meeting has dictated the direction of several of the big projects that ArtbyJared has brewing throughout the year...in fact, it has given birth to the (potential) fourth event of the year...lots of work, and big decisions, but not much paint on canvas...anyway, I am hoping to remedy that in the next few weeks now that some of the big decisions have been made. (we even moved forward with Yuri's Night 2012 this week!)

This week was the Opening for Rock Bottom at Landless...unfortunately, the set photos I have are totally lame because I was not able to stick around while they rehearsed, so what you see is the set literally plopped down after being taken off the truck.


The cool part about this set was that I got to look up graffiti from Amsterdam, which is a lot more calligraphic (and in English) than you would think...go see the show, and see how many dutch sayings you can pick out! Proost!

Some greatest hits from the hiatus

As promised, here are some of the greatest hits from the hiatus of the last three months...

Sookie in the CONE OF SHAME (post spaying)

The set for Yuri's Night in the Dome, with Capt. Ballcrusher, #2 and Drinkbot...a full accounting of the Countdown To Yuri's Night experience can be had at www.outofthisworldparty.com

The Dome lit up during the Atomic Mosquitos preshow set.

the Photo Op for Yuri's Night...Oddly, there are few photos of this...

The Artisphere Ballroom with Eastern Standard Time skankin' it up!

The Set Design for B-Team...such as it is...

The Set Design for Psycho Beach Party (BTW, Scenery Appreciation Nites for both B-Team and Psycho Beach party are June 17 and 18th respectively)

Production photo of Psycho Beach Party

My wall at the G40...Its part of the stencil show...I did my best to do very thick stencils on the paintings of the flames and stalactites, which isn't really what the other kids were doing...you only have one week left to see this fantastic show...info HERE

Mr. Toad car Photo Op for Imagination Stage (repurposed from the Spookydog Clue Caravan!)

A very tired Sookie at the Marcatus festival at Yards Park...