self cure

We've been slowly working on our apartment. I bought myself a new computer desk on Craigslist, and on Tuesday I put it together and cleared a space for it in the den. The reasoning behind this was to get the taxes done, and though it took a while, yes, I made some progress on that too. The rest of the room is still in progress, so it's not worth showing just yet. Hopefully this weekend we'll finish moving everything around and I can begin to settle into my new work space. I have hopes of artistic inspiration once the clutter has been removed.

The economy has been really getting me down recently. The play I recently designed closed, and I have just one more project coming up. I don't blame myself for this lack of work. In fact, everyone I know is slowing down and reevaluating what they'll do next. Last Saturday I had a meeting for my new project, and afterwards I hung out a little with the sound designer, who I have worked with twice before and am thrilled to be working with again. We were in Williamsburg and he followed me up to The Yarn Tree, where I bought some bamboo roving.

Broadway seems to be doing very well, and I'm not sure why. It's the little shows that are suffering, the ones dependent on funders for donations in order to survive. Non profits. This sound designer said that 6 companies that he worked with last year have now folded or lost their spaces, and are no longer producing. He also said that he did something like 25 projects last year, a mixture of assisting and designing, and now he only has a handful coming up. 2 projects that I thought I'd be doing were either postponed or downsized, pushing me out. We both found this terrifying.

The upswing of this, what seems to be in the air these days in the arts community, is that this might be a time for us to try something new. This sound designer was talking about how he'd always wanted to compose music, and now he has the time. I've wanted to try illustration (yes, and quilting and other fibery things).

Or perhaps we'll see unusual collaborations. Once we take the money aspect out of a theater project (ie someone hires you to do their project, and then they sell tickets) perhaps things can be a little more democratic and more interesting. "WPA" seems to be on everybody's tongue. I am not sure that the US government is about to give money for theater development this time around (though it would be wonderful if it did). But perhaps slow times call for self-motivation.