The Great Art Heist

Over one of the breaks at our ESL school, a company came in to use our classrooms to make a video series. They had some expensive equipment there for several days, and someone must have known about it, because one night the back door was broken into and some of the expensive equipment was taken. It was quite unsettling, but we didn't lose anything of ours....or so we thought at the time. Several days later, I noticed that a Van Gogh print that I had matted and framed and hung in the hallway was gone.... as well as two woodblock prints copies of Mt. Fuji that were matted but not framed. May I emphasize that these were all, um, very inexpensive, and other prints, nicer (but still inexpensive), were untouched. Hmmm. I can't quite figure it out.

Are You a Furniture Re-Arranger, or Not?

Some women love to rearrange their furniture. Not me. I like to figure out what the very best way is to place the furniture in any given room, and then I leave it like that forever. It is a combination of my aesthetic sense and common sense that determines where couches, chairs and the like will leave footprints in my carpet forever. I don't know feng shue, so that at least doesn't complicate things for me, because as it is it sometimes takes me a while to get it all figured out. My livingroom has never been satisfying. It was not built to accommodate a couch, and should have 2 loveseats instead. But we have lots of people in our family, so I'm unwilling to give up the extra seating room, and I don't want to buy new furniture anyway.
There is a major change coming to my living room. On its way on some truck somewhere is several hundred square feet of hardwood flooring. The old carpet is going to make way for it, and it is forcing me to reconsider the arrangement of the furniture, since an area rug will be necessary on the hardwood floor, and the area rug needs to line up with the fireplace and have either the couch or the loveseat anchoring it. I'm going to be feeling a little out of sorts until I get this all figured out.

Sometimes You Just Need a Really Great Costume

I recently got the chance to do something I've always wanted to... costume a show. It was MVHS' choir concert, and featured Disney music. Disney doesn't let you use their images or tell their stories (we heard that a high school got sued by them for infringing), so I had to find other things to do to make the stage colorful and interesting. There were 200 kids to costume, and some of them needed more than one costume, so it was quite involved. But it was so much fun to do. We had a source to rent some ethnic costumes economically, which was very helpful, but I made lot of animal and bird costumes. It was such an interesting process to observe with the kids. Their big finale was a medley from Lion King, and that was where I put in most of my efforts. I loved the costuming and staging for the Broadway Lion King. Of course I didn't have the resources to do anything like that, and wouldn't want to be sued anyway! But it helped me envision what I wanted the stage to look like for that number. Lots of texture with animal prints, lots of warm bright color, and the kids to look like models and rock stars with their hair and makeup suggesting various animals. When I first started working with them, I asked each of them if they would be willing to have their hair, makeup and costume done resembling an animal. I got very few enthusiastic responses. As the performance drew nearer and as they understood what I wanted, more and more of them became supportive and excited, but even the dress rehearsal was quite disappointing to me. The kids had tried to put makeup on each other and ended up looking like a grade school halloween party, and the light techies were struggling with the lighting and it was too dark, cold and gray.
Thankfully, opening night was much better. The mom who was in charge of the hair and makeup had engaged Paul Mitchell students to come and do service hours making up the kids, and they did some amazing things! I was busy most of the night and didn't get to go in and watch until the final number, and when I did, I was blown away. The stage was BEAUTIFUL, with rich warm red and gold light, full of glamourous, cool looking kids in animal prints and bright rich colors, and they were exuding a wonderful energy and singing the walls down. When they finished, the audience popped up all at once and roared for them! And after the show, there were kids everywhere strutting around, showing off, getting their pictures taken, having so much fun with it. I had so many of the kids tell me they never had imagined that doing a show like that could be such a wonderful experience. I knew from helping when Joel and Rachael were in Les Mis how important costume, hair and makeup were to the performers, but doing this concert was an eye opener to me. I see 3 really great benefits to good costuming: The stage looks great; the performers feel wonderful; and they sing, dance and act with energy and enthusiasm that is so engaging. It was a very rewarding experience for me.