A Child Of Atom

Well it didn't work when I tried it for Christmas... but I figured I'd post these birthday wishes since we have about a month until that date.




Either of these would make me happy happy happy. (Anyone detect a theme to my wish lists?) Both are available here. (In fact the second statue, the bust of Rachel, is exclusive to them.)

Edward Scissorhands, as a dance piece, at one of the most respected "art theatre" houses in New York City, The Brooklyn Academy of Music. What is the world coming to? This production is entirely wordless, existing purely in a world of dance.

I don't even know what else to say about it. It looks... well... it looks... awful. But BRILLIANTLY awful. I mean... look closely at this next shot:


Those are people. In shrub costumes. SHRUB. COSTUMES.

The mind boggles.

(Aside to Kevin: THIS is my Ghost Rider.)

In the life of a freelancer there often come... periods... week, months, maybe even years, when there just isn't any work.

It's scary.

In January I was frantically running about town trying to get the costumes and sets ready for two different shows, buried under more work than I knew what to do with, and loving every moment of it. (Well, maybe not EVERY moment. That night I spent sleeping in the office of the theatre on a pile of old curtains was not a career high point...) After that things crashed. After sleeping off those weeks of work for a couple days I awoke to... a whole lotta nothin'. January and February are notoriously slow months in my line of work, and March and April are DEAD. So I usually have to work my ass off in November and December in order to bank enough to get me through to May. The problem was, I hadn't.

I was headed into middle February without much in the bank, and not a single job lined up. In fact I didn't have another gig until April, and it was a non-paying one. It was all I could do not to panic. I considered temping, that old fall back, that I consider every time I get in this situation, and I considered... well... all sorts of things.

Now, here I am, just around the time that my money was scheduled to run out. So where am I? Well, the situation is considerably less bleak. The proceeds from my gallery show have come in (well, the check is in the mail...). I'm back working on the movie that I was working on back in October. And since they are being filmed in the same studio that led to working on a new episode of The B-Team (see older episodes here, I am painting the backgrounds and making a few random props). Plus I'm doing props for an Equity Showcase downtown. And tutoring a colleague in Photoshop. And, and, and... a half a dozen other ands.

In other words, plenty of work. But no... WORK. Nothing in the vein of what it is that I actually do. Lots of stuff on the periphery of what I do though, and I guess that's okay. It just feels like I am not progressing much in the next few months which leaves me feeling a bit bleak.

But at least I won't be feeling a bit hungry, and that's what matters I guess.

This month I didn't have a specific theme or style in mind when I set out photographing my day, but one quickly developed over the course of the day, and then became obvious as the day went on: Multiples. (This is all based on a project started by Chad Darnell.)

I spent the night at Kid Flash's last night and forgot to take my camera with me, but he was gracious enough to let me borrow his for the day. Let me tell you, his little Canon PowerShot SD400 is a lot easier to carry around than my Nikon D50! I may have to look into getting something small like this for these projects and reserve the D50 for portfolio shots, which is what it was purchased for in the first place.


I was working this morning for a company out in Brooklyn that does stop motion animation films. They ate gearing up for there next piece and the studio was littered with pieces of dolls that were being prepped for the shoot. The puppets they use are all made from various doll parts.


My job was painting the still backgrounds for the shoot. It is part of an ongoing series, so there are some existing pieces that will need to be matched, and some others that will need to be touched up, or modified for the new story.


The dolls are EVERYWHERE and can get little weird to work around frankly. They've all been reworked to look like various celebrities or public figures so any given pile might be a dozen Madonna's mixed with Bill Clinton's or Paris Hiltons piled on top of Randy Jacksons.


A multiple of little birdies that I saw when I went for lunch.


Speaking of lunch...


A sketch of one of the backgrounds that I'll be rendering later in the week, Mann's Chinese.


The hall outside the studio features this... unusual... flock of birdies.


After work it was over to Manhattan for the weekly card game. (Which seems to fall on the 12th quite a bit...) This is a stop on the R, headed in.


And my final stop in Manhattan.


A swing through Starbucks for a snack to take to the game.


Multiples showed up during the game too.


More game artifacts.

Tomorrow is another day off, while the interns at the studio prep art boards for me, then Wednesday I'll be back in to start the real paintings.