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Sketchbooks, shoe polish and determination.

finishing a sketchbook is like finishing a container of shoe polish. When you start, you never can see how some little swipes her and there can ever get you to the end. And the turtle’s pace of drawing, writing and scribbling on each page can be maddeningly slow. But it can happen. I make this connection because I have finally done both, finished a container of shoe polish, and finished a sketchbook. Mostly my sketchbooks are partially filled before they are set aside for a new one.

Each bought with a reason or purpose:
“oh i will fill this one with only my production sketches. This time i will really sketch out this design and fill up this book.”
“Oooo, a new Moleskine, this is sweet! This elastically thing is awesome, you know if I just thought my sketchbook was aethestically pleasing then I would write in it more.”
“You know if this was a size that fit in my everyday bag I would use it more.”
“If it fit into a pocket I would use it more.”

It only was finished because I persistently used it. And it only took about two years. My hope the current one will fill sooner.

I wonder how much other people fight with the same issues. There is probably a desire to be creative in lots of people, and what separates the desire from the doing?

Design Stuff, Education & Miseducation

Thinking about Theater in Terms of Negotiated Agency

As I was skimming thru the Internet I came across this blog post and thought it was very interesting. Of course because of who I am, I looked at what she was saying thru the lens of theater. It is by Nina Simon, who runs the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History.

She quotes the creator of Sim City who said: “Game players have a negotiated agency that is determined by how the game is designed.”  The term negotiated agency means a set of rules that decides how much freedom of choice they have to engage the game. Which immediately brought to mind the idea of theatrical conventions and the ‘rules of the game’ for theater performances. She goes on to say:

In other words, the more constrained the game environment, the less agency the player has. The more open, the more agency. Think about the difference between Pacman and Grand Theft Auto. Both games have a “gamespace” in which they are played. Both games have rules. But Grand Theft Auto invites the player to determine their own way of using the space and engaging with the rules. The player’s agency is not total, but it is significant.

A lot of games now give a lot of leeway or freedom for the player (audience of the game) to choose their way. As a result, younger generations are expecting a different set of rules to engage experiences. This is also reinforced by the rest of the world people are living in now. Think about the entertainment options that are available now as opposed to the 30-some years ago. By that I mean the younger generations have had a lot more interactive experiences on the web actively choosing and searching for their entertainment, as opposed to having the 4 broadcast TV channels I grew up with. There is a different attitude, of being connected to friends thru social networks and sharing their real life experiences with the online community. All of that contributes to younger generations expecting a different way of interacting with the world. Makers of theater today have to understand this when creating work. If you want to engage a diverse audience, this includes younger members, how can you revisit traditional notions of negotiated agency(conventions of theater) to spark the interest of that younger audience? Can that new negotiated agency create a form of theater that would be different than other entertainment? And would that form of theater bring in an audience that can get a passive audience experience through other modes of entertainment? Time will tell. Or perhaps I need to get out there and make something like that…

Bit of the ordinary, Family biz

Questioning and self-critique

There are some people out there that I consider acquaintances, even though I have never met them in person. One of those people is Lisa Lazar. She is scenic artist at Berkley Repertory Theater and i know her thru the Scenic Artists email list on Yahoo. She has a blog that she sometimes posts about her scenic painting, and also gardening, beekeeping and photography. She is one of those intensely cool artsy people that I wished lived nearby. A recent post of her’s struck a chord with me. Hows Robb?: How I Suck The Joy Out Of Everything. In it she talks about seeing the imperfections is a sweater she has knitted and subsequently loses all sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in what she has created. She traces it back to criticism from growing up:

I grew up in a very unhappy family. My mother was violently abusive, and my parents lost no opportunity to let me know that they considered me an utter failure, someone who would never amount to anything. I was a shy, clumsy child, and my family took never failed to miss an opportunity to taunt me for my failings. To this day, I hear their voices in my head.

This sparked two thoughts in me. One, I hear nagging doubts in my head all the time, and everything I do on stage, I always see what could be improved. I would be surprised if there was someone out there that doesn’t have any doubt about what they do. Questioning your own work and looking for improvement isn’t a bad thing. It is what keeps you striving for improvement and searching for more. But that of course can be taken to an extreme. If you look at her sweater that she made:

Isn’t it beautiful? That would be an amazing gift to receive! The questioning voices she hears about her own work and adequacy make me so sad. She has been given an unfair and unjust burden for the rest of her life.

This is the second train of thought that came to me. Parenting is such an awesome (in the definition of “Extremely daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear.”) responsibility. I feel parents can’t just tell their children that everything single thing they do is perfect and world class, there has to be a bit of reality mixed in with the support and praise. But the love is always unconditional. This is something I need to be aware of with my kids. I think I am, but it can’t hurt to be reminded every once in a while.

Bit of the ordinary

Roger Ebert Said things Better Than Anybody Else

With Roger Ebert‘s passing this week, I find myself looking back at his writing like so many others I am sure. Growing up, his was a constant voice in our household. Like the opening credits of Masterpiece Theater or Mystery!, there were some shows that I always remember watching. At The Movies was one of those. Seeing new movies every week, being discussed by Siskel and Ebert was a constant. Seeing the reviews in the papers was always there too.

As I got older and moved away from Chicago, I still found reviews of Ebert and Siskel, either in newspapers or eventually on the web. Roger Ebert was a great writer.

Here are some collections of what he wrote:

13 Things Roger Ebert Said Better Than Anybody Else.

Roger Ebert’s 20 Most Epic Movie Pans

Bit of the ordinary, Geekiness

Beautiful Time-Lapse of Earth

I saw this linked to, and could not pass up sharing it. Shot from the International Space Station, the viewer passes over the earth during day and night, over storms and volcanos, over recognizable terrain (East Coast at night time!) and unfamiliar ones. Truly a treat to see and a humbling experience for those orbiting over the earth once every 90 minutes.

Time-Lapse | Earth from Bruce W. Berry Jr on Vimeo.

Time-Lapse | Earth on Vimeo on Vimeo

via Time-Lapse | Earth on Vimeo.

Bit of the ordinary, Design Stuff, Geekiness

Newly Printing

I got a new 3d Printer recently, and looking back it was really time. I bought the Makerbot in April of 2009. Thinking the average lifespan of a computer is 4-6 years, it shouldn’t be too far off to have a 3d printer be a 4 year lifespan. It basically is a blend of computing and mechanics. And lately the Makerbot has been out of commission more than it has been printing.

The new machine is by Afinia and it was rated by Make Magazine as one of the most reliable and a great initial user experience. I have to agree with them. Everything was just like it said in the user manual, easy and straightforward.

20130219-100024.jpg

It has been easy to print multiple pieces. The picture above is a copy of a sculpture of the face of Alexander the Great. Only a couple more pieces to print and then I will be trying to give it a faux finish and patina more like the original.

Fun times again!

Bit of the ordinary

Twitter, Backupify and the legacy of the Web

As I sometimes do, something occurred to me and I posted it on twitter:

Someday my youngest will no longer say 'pisketti for spaghetti. On that day I will be sad.

Then days, more than a week actually, later i was reminded of the fleeting nature of childhood (as one only can in adulthood) and wanted to remember what I said exactly. I couldn’t find it one my Twitter feed and found Facebook to be clunky to search thru. Luckily I have both services signed up to Backupify. It creates a separate backup of online web services (Twitter, Facebook Flickr etc…) that is searchable. So not only do you retain your information outside of the website being used, but it is also easy to search thru.

Which struck me as lucky. Lucky that I was able to find it and not have it lost. Because if childhood is fleeting, how is it going to be remembered or documented in the future? Will my kids be interested is what I was saying when they were little? Will I be interested in what I was saying? I think I will at least. So having backupify for everything out there on the Internet, and my own database backups of this site will give me some piece of mind. So that even if I am the only searching back to find my frame of mind,at least my mind circa 2012 could be found.

the Blog of Owen Collins