From the archives of the PRTC Fatbook

I have been cleaning out and purging my possessions, and I came across a 3"x5" fatbook I used as a crew member while I was an Apprentice at the Purple Rose in Chelsea, MI. Along with my notes for each show, there are also quite a few drawings in this wee notebook (you can tell it's from work by the lists about stockings and hairspray accompanying the drawings). They are all the product of my brain; I don't think any of these are drawn from life.

Almost all the drawings are in ballpoint pen of varying colors, and they are all from January-June 2011.

These lovely, deadly ladies are wielding saws-alls, a super cool tool I used with the rest of the crew while extracting various bits and pieces from the Screw Works factory building in Chelsea to use in the set of "Consider the Oyster" in June 2011.

Hamletmachine

"My mother the bride. Her breasts a bed of roses. Her womb a nest of snakes." -Hamlet in Hamletmachine by Heiner Muller

I love basically all of the play Hamletmachine, and it is absolutely worth checking out in performance or script form. Here are some musings using one of my favorite passages, an exploration in marrying text and image.

Here are some panels in rougher format:

Ballpoint pen and Sharpie on reused paper

Below, I've literally (with scissors and tape) cut and pasted the panels into two slightly different, rough layouts, with some semblance of a title. The text below each vertical panel reads: "My mother the bride / Her breast [accidentally left out the plural s] a bed of roses / her womb a nest of snakes"

Ballpoint pen, Sharpie, and packing tape on reused pape

Embroidery

Here are some drawings I have been working on, inspired by some new skills I learned at work in the costume shop. They are based on some drawings I did while at Bowdoin awhile ago. I enjoy the dimension of embroidery in these pieces because of the female legacy of sewing, added to the cameo silhouette imagery. Making the women monstrous adds a measure of rebelliousness and grotesqueness. Enjoy!

Thread in muslin

April 2012

Thread in muslin

April 2012

Sampler

Embroidery thread in muslin

April 2012

This piece shows some practice stitches within the silhouette.

Metro

Normally, my commute is a good 15 minutes long--the short walk to the costume shop from intern housing. Last week, because I was house and cat sitting in the 'burbs in Maryland, I took the metro to work every morning, and here are some drawings of my fellow passengers. Messy, awkward perspectives and hasty lines signify quickly done drawings, but I liked doing this sort of guerilla-style documentation, unbeknownst to my subjects.

This guy was on the phone, and it looked like he was talking to his reflection, so I drew both.

Ballpoint pen in stenographer notebook

Red Riding Hood

To get back into it after a huge (but fruitful) hiatus, here are some musings on a variation of Red Riding Hood. I've drawn her in the format of a design I'd like to develop into a performance piece.

Ballpoint pen, brush pen, and ink in sketchbooks

October-November 2011