June has come sooner than I hoped, leaving just a few short weeks until my installation Millennial Turns 30 premiers. As it turns out, physically manifesting ideas takes a great deal of time. I am spending several hours every day sewing, painting, and glueing this thing into life. Add on to that producing a show alone (something I’ve never before attempted) and I’m pretty swamped. At least I am pleased with the outcomes of my labor. It’s fun to see my creative musings become physical objects, even when wrangling my brain and body into making them is difficult. Indeed, the payoff feels greater when I had to struggle to get it out. As I write this, I’m considering how blogging may be a form of procrastination on my other projects.

Millennial Turns 30 is going to be a thing. I’m almost wishing it had already happened because I’m so curious how it will turn out. As I’m creating objects, videos, and performances, it is surprising how much some of them affect me. I knew I wanted them to be a part of this installation, but not always why I thought so. The why is becoming clearer and clearer, and I hope that it will translate in a meaningful way to my audience. I also hope I have an audience- if you know anyone near Portland, ME, I would so appreciate if you invite them to see it (June 22, 4-8pm). Delights include a live-steam #hashtag feed, avocado people, Millennial home tours, nostalgia altars, and my piece de resistance: the biological clock!

While the installation is by far my biggest art endeavor this month, I also am doing a few other art-y things. It’s audition season, and I’ve been doing my best to actually audition, something I always struggle with. I find signing up for auditions very stressful, and actually doing them is quite time consuming, then there’s the ‘just forget about it’ challenge afterwards- I just keep reminding myself that only good can come from me putting myself out there! As it turns out, several of them have actually been fun.

Going Down in Flames is now open and entertaining and moving audiences. I’m so happy I got to be a part of this project. It was fun to be “just” a designer for once. And I made/mod-ed a tiny driving car with a working airbag, that’s one for the books! And getting to spend time with my Dell’Arte famiglia has been wonderful. There is one more weekend of performances here in Portland, and then the show travels to Blue Lake, CA for the Mad River festival.

There is one more week of term for my classes. It’s been an interesting spring term, and I think I’ve grown as a teacher. Scene Study was a new class for me, and as I discover my curriculum (because things never go as planned) I think I’ve landed on a pretty solid method for introducing behind-the-scenes actor work to my student population. Commedia has been a bit tricky without a co-teacher. I’m realizing how it is an art form that is learned as much from watching as trying; I can’t demonstrate some of the finer points alone. This has forced me and my students to work harder to master the basics from a creative place. While it’s not my favorite method of teaching, it has created some new pathways to learning.

Now back to the grind, today I need to finish a portrait of Grover (my doggo), teach a class, line up a photoshoot, and do a bunch of administrative work. Here’s to making art dreams into reality!