People who inspire.

It's Wednesday, Mike is off of work today lounging on the couch with Hailey and wow, gee, it's snowing.  Such a rarity around here this winter, that snow thing.  Yeah, we're all pretty sick of it and dying for spring already.

I'm still working on the pantry.  I've got the stinky painting all done.  Another thing about cheap paint, aside from the lack of quality and the stink:  lack of consistency between gallons.  At least this second gallon was better than the first.  Yep, I used 1.5 gallons of paint for a 6'x11' room with a 10' ceiling.  I know.  Next time spend the same amount for one gallon of better paint.

Time to go get a few more shelves and I can have the pantry done.  Finally.  Ugh.  This one has been a thorn in my side, in that its messy, unorganized, cobbled together sad state of affairs was driving me crazy.  Let's see if I can convince Mike on his day off, laying on the couch, to head out into the snow to help me pick up some shelves.....heh.  One can dream.

So a long time ago, I'm not sure when, someone showed me a book about Boris Aronson.  He was a scenic designer born in the Ukraine in 1900 and died in 1980 in New York City.  You can read about him here as well as here.  (Boy, I'm getting the hang of this technology thing, huh?  Well, sorta, anyway.)

The book was "The Theater Art of Boris Aronson" and it really struck a chord with me.  He was so innovative, he used materials in unexpected and different ways, ways that were not their intended use.    His set renderings were unusually painterly and abstract, so colorful, atypical of set renderings.  His set models were deeply intriguing.  Considering I had just come from a ton of art history classes this is also probably why I was so attracted to his work.  He thought outside of the box.  He didn't do things the usual, expected way.  And his design for Cabaret is probably the reason why it's the only musical I like.

Now that I really think about it, he was a much bigger influence on me and my theater career than I realized, and is still a big influence today.  I'm an outside-of-the-box thinker thanks in part to him, always wondering how things can be used in other ways or what ways things can be manipulated to achieve something new.  It's important to try and see things in different ways because you never know what you might learn.  Or what great design thing you might come up with.  Experiment.  Try.  Learn.  You might run into resistance, and I have, but keep at it.

Here's a link to some of his designs:  http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?p=254
And a rendering of his from Fiddler on the Roof:  http://secondcitytzivi.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/aronsonanatevka.jpg
And a photo shoot from the Boris Aronson archives.

Fair warning, I didn't read the content of those pages, sorry; I was more interested in the images.

Who has influenced you?

Oh, and don't forget, Sirens premieres tomorrow, March 6 at 9 pm central on USA Network.  It'll be the pilot and first episode of the season, a full hour of chuckles!  Woo hoo!