All Eyes on Me

I have been bitching and moaning a lot lately about the amount of costuming I own. It's just getting to the point where it's outgrown the storage space I have for it and encroaching on living space. I'm lucky in that I have a lot of closets and places to tuck boxes away, but I have had to get increasingly inventive and put things in places where I find them an imposition. I think the only real answer is to do a serious culling, but I'm reluctant to do it due to the nature of building and making use of this particular kind of collection.

The Victorian stuff is the most important part of it. I need it for the Mrs. Hawking plays, given how large an element lush and attractive costuming is for those shows. In the most recent piece, Mrs. Frost, most characters had three or four outfits, and nobody had less than two. We have mostly the same cast coming back for the performances, but I try to keep some alternative sizes on hand in case a new actor has to sub in. Having multiple options that way makes the collection larger with things that don't often get used, but it's necessary to accommodate changes with any efficiency.

Since that's the majority of what I'm doing right now, it might make sense to keep only the Victorian stuff. But I have so many things that are unique and interesting such that if I ever do get rid of them, they're basically irreplaceable. They were dug out of cleared-out theater storage, or found in thrift stores. They don't get used often at this point, but I often find I have exactly the perfect thing for a larp, or another show, or to lend to somebody who needs it that I can't bear the thought of tossing the cool interesting stuff even if it doesn't get much call. I just repurposed a dance costume I bought for "Lame Swans", the photographic graphic novel I made in grad school for an Intercon costume I'm really pleased with. That thing's been shoved in a plastic bin for like five or six years, because I liked it too much to get rid of it. I feel vindicated in a way. But it doesn't solve my storage problem, or the feeling of being overwhelmed by the space demands of my collection. Hell, I still have ALL the costuming from the Lame Swans project, including enough simple solid colored skirted dance leotards to outfit a small army. SERIOUSLY, IF YOU NEED TO DRESS AN ARMY OF SOLID COLORED BALLERINAS, HIT ME UP. I GOT RED, PURPLE, DARK BLUE, AND LIGHT BLUE.



I was also struck pretty strongly by the experience of dressing the ensemble for the large ballroom scene on the Mrs. Hawking film. I used almost every single ballgown and tuxedo piece I owned— WHICH IS A LOT —to make that happen, and it would have been literally impossible if I hadn't had so much at my fingertips. I found that process to be pretty brutal, honestly, even with the enormous amount of help Jenn gave me to get everybody actually properly dressed, so the idea of anything that might have made it harder is kind of terrifying. But it makes me even more nervous to get rid of stuff, because I've seen how much help it can be to have it on hand.

I think I need to sit down with an obliging friend (Jenn seems like a good candidate) who can help me get some outside perspective on what's actually special enough to keep and what is just taking up space. It occurs to me that the weird color obsession I have with dressing the Hawking characters might help me make decisions about the Hawking stuff. For example, light blue womenswear has been pretty exclusively limited to Mary and Frost, so if I've got a light blue piece that neither of them is likely to wear, I should probably thank it for its service and release it into the wild, Marie Kondo-style. I think an additional brain or two with less subjective concerns might help.

If I don't do something, I may be crushed to death in the impending tuxedo-pants-and-eighties-prom-dress avalanche.

I've not been posting as regularly as I once was. I used to at least once every weekday, sometimes more, but lately I've had more and more days where I couldn't think of anything, or couldn't find the time. I chalk both of these occurrences up to being so busy-- it eats my time and it eats my brainpower to get everything done. But my blog is important to me, it keeps me writing, and I want to build my readership, so I have to make sure it stays a priority. I'm making up for a week of it that I missed because of residency now.

I have a lot on my plate. The fourth and final semester of my grad program, the thesis semester which I'm just entering now, is going to be intense. The workload is pretty heavy for just four months. This is going to eat a lot of time, so I think I need to keep my schedule relatively open and commitment-free. Low-key social stuff has been kind of getting lost lately, so I want to have things like that back in my life, but I think anything more responsible or regimented has to be foregone. This may prove difficult if responsibility becomes necessary to get a production put on or something, but I, for example, won't be auditioning for any plays in the immediate future.

Writing is my biggest priority. New work, of course. But I also want to shape my current writing. It occurs to me that Lame Swans could probably be rewritten to make a full-length play. That could be interesting. Might be a bit difficult to cast actors who were also skilled ballet dancers, but it would be visually very powerful. And Mrs. Hawking could be converted into a screenplay. I have to finish editing it first, to get the play into the best possible shape it can be, but there are a lot of details about it that I could include on the screen that I can't really onstage. Like, I've always imagined Mrs. Hawking being an expert knife-thrower, and lots of cool fight and action scenes. These things are percolating in my head.

I also want to post my comic book, Lame Swans. I know it's not edited as perfectly as I wanted it to be, but I'm not going to have a lot of time to do it up in the near future, and I want to share it. I just need to figure out the best way to "publish" it on the web, so to speak. It's a series of pages. Should I post it scene by scene on the blog? Should I put it on DeviantArt and share the link? I'm really not sure, I'll have to figure it out.

Things are rough right now. I might post about why in the near future. But I'm trying to keep things going in spite of it. And make things as easy on myself as possible right now as I'm trying to get through.

Had a photo shoot for Lame Swans yesterday, the third we've had so far. I was feeling pretty awful, and I really do not know what I'm doing with these photography jaunts, but fortunately everyone is patient and willing to help me out such that somehow we muddle through. I'm really happy with how the images look; now I just need to lay them out and edit them to my satisfaction to turn them into a comic book.

niobien has really been my muse for this project. Not only is she so pretty, she's a joy to take pictures of. Her face and carriage are so expressive. Also, because she has talent and experience in ballet, an art I've become very interested in recently, she was the perfect person to build this project around. Look at what a supermodel she is.


Gorgeous. I've been extremely lucky with all my models. They have tried hard, been patient with my muddling through, and best of all did a great job acting with their physicality and facial expressions alone.

There's something in my head, though, as I take and look at these pictures. Recently I have been exposed to a number of blogs and resources that highlight issues of objectification of women in comics. It's a thing that eats me, the frequency with which female characters are just incidentally presented in sexually objectifying ways, because of an often underlying, unconscious assumption that female characters are only interesting if they're sexy. My comic book has mostly female characters, so I have a strong desire to create an example of the medium that bucks that convention. When I ask them to pose, I try to let the acting of the moment and the shape of the dancing decide how they hold themselves. There is some concern, of course, for the aesthetics of that posing, but I try to make it about the image rather than the body of the model. Everyone I asked to participate is a good-looking person, and I think that adds to the charm of the visuals, but I want them to come off as pretty people, not pretty objects.

But on the other hand, the dance which is the motif I have chosen to tell my story is about a celebration of the capabilities of the physical. Showcasing the body as it performs ballet is the true visual richness of this graphic novel. I need to do it to achieve the right effect. But I find myself struggling to balance things like inclusion and focus on faces with inclusion and focus on bodies, especially given that the images have to fit in a specific layout. I don't want it to be like I wrote a story about ballet that doesn't actually show any ballet. It's an interesting challenge. I hope I'm up to it.

You know, I kept telling myself once November hit, things were going to ease up for me. But I realize it's not really like that at all. I have to finish writing Break a Leg for SLAW this coming weekend, and then get prepared to shoot the images for my graphic novel Lame Swans. I meant to get all the sheets for Break a Leg completed by last night, but as SO OFTEN HAPPENS, as soon as I RESOLVED TO SPEND ALL WEEKEND WORKING, I came down with a killer head-splitting migraine. Probably due to my stress over getting things done, I get a migraine, which prevents me from getting things done, which increases my stress over getting things done. And so I become more prone to migraines.

I have only three more sheets to go, and they're all pretty short for a short game, so I know I will be able to finish by tonight and send them out. They'll be quick reads, and they got costuming hints weeks ago so they should have been able to prepare. It'll be okay.

I'll just have to power through, as I am ready to switch gears. I don't have time not to. Shooting for Lame Swan begins this Wednesday night, and I still have a lot of prep to do. I have to make my shot list based on the models I will have present, which will take time, and gather the last few costume pieces I need. Hopefully without spending any more money. I have poured too much into this already, so I'm going to scrounge for what I can borrow and fake. Fortunately my models and assistants are being incredibly accomodating, so thank God for them. Every little bit helps.

My stress level is high. I am accomplishing a lot of cool things, things I'm proud of, but there's been no respite, no release of all the tension. I have to keep going, but I've also got to find some way to chill out. I don't know how much longer my system can take all this cortisol before I crack.