three long weeks

Ben has been performing his show in New York City at the Frigid Fringe Festival!  It is going really well! You can read about his experience so far here.  He's also seeing shows on Broadway and making Patrick Stewart laugh.  He's networking and getting inspired to do more exciting projects.

But for real.  He's been gone for two weeks. And there's still one more to go.

 

(get it? because I'm home alone) 

hitting the ground running.

If January is indicative of how the rest of the year is going to unfold, it will be productive, busy, fun, and fairly successful.  However, I won't get much reading done...

Ben has been working hard on Questions of the Heart.  Mid-month he performed the show at our church building as a fireside.  Ben wrote a great post about it on his website.  The discussion afterwards was incredible.  In fact, the whole evening was rather surreal, especially for Ben.  He's had several productive discussions with the Bishop and a handful of others about what would make it an even better fireside in the future, for various types of wards.  Through this fireside, Ben has made some incredible connections and received encouragement to add ways to donate to the show.  We also have two additional performances in Bloomington lined up, one before, and one after the Frigid Fringe Festival in NYC.

The Primary Room transformed into a performance space.

Along with assisting Ben with his show stuff I opened my thesis production, Woyzeck. The show is known as the "first working-class tragedy" or the "first modern tragedy" and is about a poor man trying to make it as best he can but is ultimately driven to insanity and violence.  It's pretty strange (the playwright died before it was finished) and dark, but I love it!  I chose it because the story is fascinating (it was based on the crime that used the first "insanity plea") and it lends itself to being highly stylized, which I hadn't done yet and, frankly, slightly terrified me.  It has been an incredible experience and I have loved working with the director (who I worked with on Waiting for Lefty) and design team.  With the production up and running I will have my thesis defense in a couple weeks and can focus on writing the accompanying paper about the process of designing the show.  That will be due towards the end of the semester, so I'll be chipping away at it over the next couple months.

Three of the Woyzeck renderings

Because this is my thesis, they displayed a good portion of my work from my time at IU.

Happy to have gotten to this point

 Some sneak preview photos from photocall.

Oh, and I suppose I also have those classes I need to finish...

The Beginning of the End

Last week marked the beginning of my final semester of school.  I must admit that I didn't have a great attitude about it.  Towards the end of Christmas break I was ready to get back into a routine, but not ready for that routine to be school.  I wasn't excited about my classes and I was feeling overwhelmed by the thought of getting back to working on my thesis.  I may or may not have had some real anxiety about it.

However.

Once things got started I quickly realized that there is potential for this to be a great semester.  In fact, this might be the perfect semester on which to end.  I am taking good, fun classes: period understructures (corsets and a crinoline), masks, and thesis credits*.  Getting organized also helped me feel hugely better - it's so amazing how that works.  I was able to look at my schedule and - since my thesis credits aren't a concrete class, but rather something I have to schedule on my own - I set aside time each week to work on writing that as well as chipping away at my portfolio (we have a portfolio review at the end of each academic year.)

In addition, I will be assisting my mentor and professor, Linda Pisano, in her design for La Traviata.  Linda is an incredible designer and I am very excited to be working with her.  The designs are quite exciting!

The only downside is that I seem to have developed tendinitis in my right wrist/arm... but I suppose it's better to learn to deal with it now while I have a student health center a short walk away.

Other than that slight hiccup, I am feeling optimistic about the upcoming months.  I may just finish this thing after all!

*My thesis is designing IU's production of Woyzeck.  Once the production is over (it opens February 7th!), I meet with my committee and discuss the final product.  After that I have to write roughly 30-50 pages about the production and design process that I will turn in with all my paper work and renderings.

Nimbus 2000, eat your heart out!

Tomorrow is the first day back to school for my final semester of grad school.

But I don't want to talk about it because I am in denial (can't grad school just be over already?)

Instead I thought I would spend this week's post remembering a lovely trip we took to Nashville, IN over Fall break in October.  We have some gorgeous photos and had a unique experience learning about handmade brooms when we stumbled upon one of about 12 remaining broom artisans in the United States. The pictures didn't quite fit a Facebook album (what are those even used for anymore?) but I wanted to share them, and I wanted to do something to acknowledge last semester without doing a year-in-review post.  I hope you enjoy!

How can you turn down an adventure on a day like this?

RESPONSE: 23 Things To Do Instead Of Getting Engaged Before You’re 23

The blog post, 23 Things To Do Instead of Getting Engaged Before You're 23 was going around last week and I couldn't help but have feelings about it.  After all, I was engaged AND married when I was 23 (yes, our engagement lasted six weeks - deal with it) and, having attended a religious college, I know plenty of people who have entered into matrimony before or around the age of 23 who are not only still married, but going strong.  And even though couples who get married in high school are statistically more likely to get divorced, I know a few who got married near the end of or immediately following high school who are still doing quite well.  The key to the success of these young marriages?  Maturity and realistic expectations.

After reading the post in its entirety I found that I agree with what seems to be the author's point: don't get married until you're ready for marriage.  It's pretty clear, however, that the author is naive about marriage and relationships in general, and what she prescribes are not experiences that will necessarily result in meaningful self-discovery or maturity.  In one excellent response post, after posting statistics about how people are actually marrying later and yet the divorce rate is higher, Baleigh Scott writes: "We don’t need to be marrying later, we need to be maturing earlier."

I really shouldn't have let "23 Things" get to me (the post is difficult to get through without steaming out the ears a bit); nevertheless, I had so many thoughts.  The first was how the real problem with young marriage is the focus on having a huge wedding and losing site of the actual marriage.  There is also a TED Talk that came to mind titled "Why 30 is Not the New 20" that I would have shown this girl had she been a friend of mine.  Finally, I wanted to ask her if she thought marriages were arranged?  Because she writes as though people marry strangers they hate and have to go through life with new, assigned interests, rather than getting to spend time with someone they like.

Feeling frustrated and expecting the worst, I was surprised to find the most comforting responses in the comment section (I know! The normally dreaded comment section).   Here's one of the best comments, from the user, Devon:

I’m 21, I live abroad, I’ve traveled to places like China, Hungary and now my current country France. I’m doing things like kissing strangers, and learning about the world around me as I travel. My parents married young, then divorced (for my mother, divorced twice) AND YET I still cannot help but cringe at your naïveté and self-righteousness. Your idea of marriage is entirely what would doom you to an unfulfilling union. I don’t care what age I am when I meet the person I want to spend my life with because I know if it’s the right person the adventure would never stop. Furthermore, you completely lost any validity to your point when you said you’ve experienced more in 23 years by travelling than people who have been married for a lifetime. Ugh, stop giving the other generations more fodder to hate us with.

With that I will leave you with my answers to the (highly ridiculous) list she provided of things I was suppose to do before getting married if I didn't want my life to be considered limited and meaningless:

1. Get a passport.

I did this when I was 19 and not only did I use it before getting married, but I've used it several times since getting married - both on my own and with my husband.

2. Find your “thing.”

I suppose my "thing" is costume design and construction; however, there are also several things I love doing outside of my profession.  Once again, I am able to work on these in spite of the great burden of being married.  I hope that the "thing" that I consider mine now will change and evolve as I get older and continue to learn about myself and the world (because one hopefully continues to grow into old age).

Oh, not to mention that there are "things" I get to have with my husband.

3. Make out with a stranger.

Done (not right now, I mean, I'm married! but once upon a time it happened).  It wasn't that awesome, but I suppose if that's something deemed an accomplishment, then go me!

4. Adopt a pet.

Pets have never been my thing.

5. Start a band.

To say I never wanted to start a band would be a lie; however, I was in choir and still sing, so I've had ample opportunity to make incredible music.  Plus, my husband owns a keyboard and we plan to learn to play.  Look at us, making goals and learning despite being married!

6. Make a cake. Make a second cake. Have your cake and eat it too.

I have made more cake being married than I ever did before.  I find it so much more fun to have someone to cook for.  Now before you get onto me about being forced into a "traditional gender role, bla, bla, bla" let me throw this at you: my husband cooks and bakes for me while I finish grad school. His cake is way better than my cake anyway.

7. Get a tattoo. It’s more permanent than a marriage.

I have two.  They can be removed.  They're also a lot less fun than hanging out with my best friend.

8. Explore a new religion.

 I'm pretty sure I can check this off my list.

9. Start a small business.

I don't want to?

10.Cut your hair.

Because you can't get your haircut after your married?  If you're that into cutting your hair then when you get married you have double the heads of hair to cut...

11. Date two people at once and see how long it takes to blow up in your face.

Ew, really? This is how you like to spend your time?  I have never, ever wanted this.

12. Build something with your hands.

Every. Single. Day.

13. Accomplish a Pinterest project.

Pinterest was barely coming around when I got married, but I am to happy to say that in spite of being married, I (and Ben) manage to make Pinterest projects happen.

14. Join the Peace Corps.

Like the band thing, I would be lying to say  I never thought about doing this. Do I regret not doing it? No because I find other ways to make a difference (as much as a married woman can, I suppose)

15. Disappoint your parents.

Hopefully you were able to do this WELL before 23... like any time in the ages between 12- wait, are you ever too old or committed to disappoint your parents?  That being said, hopefully you are past the phase of wanting to disappoint your parents, because that's how teenagers behave.

16. Watch GIRLS, over and over again.

I may not be interested in Girls, but I have other shows.

17. Eat a jar of Nutella in one sitting.

I like Nutella as much as the next person, but thinking about this gives me a stomach ache. I have, however, had my fair share of pints of ice cream.

18. Make strangers feel uncomfortable in public places.

I don't like making people uncomfortable?  Would you settle for enjoying conversation with a complete stranger?  Sharing a moment with a stranger?  This doesn't have to stop with marriage.  My husband does let me look at and talk with other people.

19. Sign up for CrossFit.

Really? No.  I do have a workout buddy (not my husband, again, he does allow me to interact with others) and I enjoy exercise.  That is surely enough.

20. Hangout naked in front of a window.

I spend more time naked now than I did before, even when I had the apartment to myself.

21. Write your feelings down in a blog.

Does this count?  However, one should really be careful about this seeing as how the internet is forever (longer than some marriages... or is that the point?  Like the tattoo thing?)

22. Be selfish.

As an only child, I think it is well beyond time for me to move on to the non-selfish stage in my life.

23. Come with me to the Philippines for Chinese New Year.

I would love to!  So would Ben.  Can we come together?

the 19th grade

This year is no joke.  Mission statements.  Teaching and design philosophies.  Portfolio and website.  Conferences.  Thesis.  Tailoring.  Masks.  Anatomy for the Artist (fancy phrase for figure drawing).  Job hunting.  Being a human.  I don't know if I'm ready for it all, but I am feeling hopeful.

Meanwhile, Ben is doing really exciting stuff, including writing a new play!  Have I mentioned how cool he is?  I really like him :)

Cool things from around the web:

Check out my friend, Denise's blog about her "love/hate relationship with art."  She somehow finds time between her toddler and newborn to get some amazing work done.  I am so proud of her!

Also, check out this great series on motherhood around the world.

Summer Round-up: Play

We have had some really lovely gatherings this summer.  There was our friend, Jeff's, unbirthday, Ben's birthday, our Nation's birthday, a few girls' nights, and then just some altogether uneventful but lovely evenings (and some mornings) with food, friends, and great conversation.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have what they call "Family Home Evening" (or FHE) on Monday nights.  It consists of a lesson, activity, and snack.  Seeing as how Ben and I are a family of two, we find it hard to motivate ourselves to do it on our own, so we started doing it with friends.  One night, our activity was croquet!  Our friends, the Lyons, taught us to play.  Mara rocked it, but Jeff turned into poison and took everyone out.  My personal lesson that night was to stop being a poor loser and have fun.  Our snack was probably watermelon because it's summer and why not?