The Policy

  20 somethings

AvantGarb used to be populated by 40 something and 50 something women ----but, the times they are a'changing. Now there are very talented, really attractive and very funny 20 somethings bringing the mascots to life.

...and the 20 somethings have a following of other very talented and really attractive and very funny 20 somethings. There has been an uptick of visitors coming through our door. They come to see their friends, check out the scene at AvantGarb or sometimes they come just to be near an object of affection.

 Anne's sketch of the 20 somethings and me at AvantGarb

Which is what happened a few days ago. A young woman came by to check out the place ---but really to stare and swoon at the object of her affection. The woman wasn't leaving.

I realized I was going to have to make a policy. 

The Policy

So bless the young woman with a huge crush on one of the GarbGangGuys. Because of her, AvantGarb now has a policy - drop-by visits are 5 or 10 minutes.  We've written a script to ease visitors out of the door. It goes something like this:

"Oh sweetie, I'm delighted you stopped by. Here, have some magnetic googlie eyes. I have to get back to the serious business of making mascots. See you later. Bye"

The Swoon

Each day, we are busy falling in love with the character we are bringing to life.

We make real objects in the real world. We sculpt and form and plan and sew all the facets of a character so that in can walk and wiggle and move through the world - or at least a stadium or community gathering. It is consuming. We are swooning for the mascot - we are in our day, and that day is one of creative collaboration.

 Matt makes a Soybean

 Laura makes a muscle

 Wren makes a kangaroo tail

Katie gets carried away by a Jazzy Bear in Utah

Julia Child, the Spider's Web & WGBH

 

When stored, the stage set for Julia Child's television cooking show was about 3 feet wide.

It was 1970. I was 18. I was clueless.

My adviser at Friends World College had connected me with Paula Apsell. Paula had started a children's radio show, The Spider's Web at WGBH-FM in Boston. During the day she scheduled programming for WGBH TV and on the side, in the evening, she produced this wonderful radio show for children.

For 3 months in Boston, I was there when actors read "Wind in the Willows" and "Pippi Longstockings", word for word (well, more or less). I was there when the same pair of wonderful actor read, screwed up, cursed colorfully and loudly, and calmly continued the reading.

I was the one to edit out the non-child-friendly words and leave the words, words, words of great literature, read by great voices for the radio.

 During my tenure as the radio tape editor for the Spiders Web, there was a TV show being taped at WGBH-TV. It was called, Jean Shepard's America. I grew up listening to Jean Shepard's  musings and ramblings on WOR in NYC. His were a grown-up, city guys memories of childhood. He mixed the memories with Robert Service poems and ...oh yeah...this-is-what-I'm-thinking-about-now stuff. Pre-Prairie Home Companion with a beat - as in beatnik - sensibility.

...this reads a bit like a Jean Shepard radio show on WOR. There is the opening line, and then a diversion, followed by another diversion, and then a return to the opening sentence - more or less.

One day, there appeared towers of pizza boxes. In each box was a pizza. The next day there was something called, head cheese. More and more food was shuttled the the WGBH lunchroom. Jean Shepard talked about food in America and Julia Child's cook prepared the food he mentioned. Us lunch eaters were served an american feast.

Well, this was food that had been cooked and preened to look good on television. It was room temperature and a few hours old. However. Julia Child and her cooks had prepared it.

In those 3 months in Boston I learned how to edit radio tapes. Like so many actual skills, the cutting and splicing of actual audio tapes is an extinct skill. It was acool thing to do - listening to all of those words, cutting out the ummms and errrs and coughs and curses and keeping the real, solid, words together. the slicing and the taping.

Working on the Spider's Web under Paula Apsell's guidance gave me a sense of the right in words and radio drama. I have been able to carry that first lesson with me into everything I do. Into art, performance, theater, costume, mascots. 

Three months in Boston set my course.

Drawing Nudes - Getting lost in the line

I loved being an art student. I loved drawing nudes. I can get lost in the line

There was a drawing teacher at Maryland Institute, Raoul Middleman, who was a vociferous fan of the line - the emotionally revealing line - the line that told the story. I became a connoisseur of the great line.

In our figure drawing class, we drew plenty of nudes - beautiful men and glorious, rolls-of-fat, women. Working for that easy, confident, emotion laden line.

A Matisse nude

My husband likes to say, "I married the art student".

Us art students have seen lots of naked people. We're not looking at naked people to cure them of disease, we are looking at nudes with a pencil in hand. We take great joy - even glee - in the line. The nude is all of humankind in our great, rambunctious, imperfections.

I get a lot of, "You're so creative. Why I can't even draw a straight line".

I try not to roll my eyes. 

Artists are interested in the human line. The line that is squiggly and emotional. It may be an angry line. It may be a tender line. It may be a line so tenuous it can bring tears. It may be a line that fritters into the unknown universe of the paper.