Makehouse

This past weekend I spent the weekend with 16 strangers on a beautiful lake in northern New Jersey.   The home belongs to the family of Mark Junek and he has been organizing 3 day artist retreats since early 2012.   This was the third iteration of makehouse,  and I was lucky enough to be a part of it.

For 3 days we lived within a nurturing and productive structure that enabled us to work on projects totally free of distractions and the outside world.   The setting was beautiful and serene  and the environment of artistic sharing and openness made for  a really extraordinary weekend.

In the mornings we were asked to remain silent until the end of breakfast ....  I would quietly sketch people in the silence.

I worked on initial construction for a project I am doing for Lar Lubovitch.   I presented my design process and a finished muslin of a jacket for my share on Saturday night.  Others shared small dance and music performances or reading from scripts they have been working on.  Others shared their thoughts for future projects or words to provoke thought among the other artists.

The trip provided amazing clarity and momentum in my practice.  Now the goal is to hold onto that practice and keep my momentum going through the chaos of New York City.

Thank you Makehouse!   I am forever grateful.   I can't wait for the next one.     If you are curious about applying to future make house sessions click here... MAKEHOUSE

Steven Stipelman

I spent 3 years at the Fashion Institute of Technology.   In my first semester... somewhere in the first few weeks of taking fashion art 1,  I started to hear the name Steven Stipelman.   Mary Bridgman was my first semester fashion art teacher,   and was profoundly influential in my time at F.I.T..   She urged those of us in her fist semester to class to try to get a space in Steven Stipelman's 2nd semester Fashion art class.   At this point,   I had no idea who was who, or what was what....   but I did as I was told,  and I got a spot in his class. As it turns out,  Professor Stipelman  is a rather celebrated fashion illustrator who worked on staff at Woman's Wear Daily for many years and illustrated for many of the great designers of the 20th century.   He is on faculty at F.I.T. now,   and continues to illustrate collections for those designers who don't want the initial viewing of their clothes photographed.

Second semester  was about to begin and I realized that I would be on tour dancing during the first meeting of his class,   so I  sent him an e-mail asking him to let me know what I would be missing.    His reply to me was that I should consider dropping the class,  and that missing information from his lessons set me irreparably behind.   ......uh oh....    I then replied to him that I had no intention of dropping the class and I would be sure to make up any missed work.

I did manage to make up missed work,   but his scare tactics were founded in the reality that his lectures were saturated with an unbelievable wealth of information.      It was in his classes where I really started to understand the psychology of designing a collection.   It was also the first time that I felt incredible emotional connection to a drawing.   Having the opportunity to watch him draw was really magical.   To watch him render chiffon or wool or Taffeta, was like watching someone actually feeling the fabric with their hand.    The way he placed pencil to paper was always extraordinary,  and to watch his chalk demonstrations on the board was at times shocking.   In mere seconds and in a couple strokes he could capture the slung pelvis of a three quarter view model in an evening gown, or the profile of a woman in full pants and a trench coat walking at full tilt down the street.

We all grew tremendously in that semester,  and I was lucky enough to have him again in my last semester.    I want to share some of his drawings with you.   I wish I could show you a film of him making a drawing... but you will have to imagine it for now.

Subway sketches

I've been drawing people on the subway for a couple years now... but very irregularly.   I recently started up again,  and I wanted to share some of my sketches of people who are still enough to draw.

Face

Some days it's hard to know what to blog about.   In all my experience today it's hard to think of something relevant to Blog about.   I did meet with a choreographer to go over some design development.....   but I can't show you that until later. So... on a late night when i can't think of anything particularly inspiring to post... I will post an illustration from a while back.   I did it in soft pencil and eyeshadow.   I drew it from a photograph of a hair model......  ahhahah.   It was a school project......  But it turned out soft and pretty.

Time to get busy

So...  its high time I put some time and thought into this website. Now that school is over and I am working as a freelance costume designer I want to start exercising my creative muscles a little every day.....  so...   I'm going to use this website as my own personal creativity gym.

Today I took a Cunningham class and started sourcing fabric on an upcoming piece that Lar Lubovitch is making..... and then I saw the movie "Total Recall".      Nota bad day all in all.

... and now I am going to post something...

This is an illustration I did a few months ago for my Australian friend Robert Curran.