Drawing the Lines

I’ve been working on creating interior image outlines from real photos through Illustrator. It amazes me how time consuming graphic work can be when trying to be accurate. These drawings have been helpful in deciding color choices for the space, but also in giving me practice in this line of design work because interior designers and architects must spend a lot of time drawing and making models before actually altering the space. The hardest part is being both the designer and the main laborer. I don’t want to get too theoretical/ideal in my designs because I can only do so much manual labor between classes, but I also don’t want to jump into physical decisions before taking time to analyze my reasoning. It’s not easy, but I am not giving up on this project. It is something I feel needs to be done. So a huge thanks to Nathaniel for continuing to work with me and be patient as I learn how to use these programs. The above images are still in process, but looking good, if I may say so.

While painting the staircase the other day, the program director expressed her concerns with my finishing the painting portion in time for the show. She mentioned that the program hires a ‘painting crew’ (one guy and maybe a friend) to paint the building interior. I had no idea a ‘painting crew’ was even an option! Now, I suppose I could blame myself for not asking the right questions, but for some reason she got the impression that I needed to do the work on my own because it’s a project… as if hiring a painting crew would be cheating. Having a crew would actually have been a great investment a few weeks ago because painting large rooms with tall walls was very strenuous and time consuming. The painting portion would have been done long ago! Now, please excuse my rant because I am not looking to place blame anywhere. Contrarily, I enjoy painting interiors- it has just been a struggle on time management and physical exhaustion (especially because I dance twice a week and we are in overtime to prepare for the show in Queen’s Hall on May 21-23). So by time the crew arrived on Friday, I already painted the bottom half of the classroom, most of the poles, and the bars on the windows. In addition, I’ve finished the main entrance doors, painted some tables, and scoped out curtain prices from a local discount store. (Photo below is courtesy of Nathaniel Chambers)

Next on my “To Do List” is to curate the accent wall which we call “rust orange.” For one of the Trinity program courses, the final project is to create something that will teach someone else about our individual experience in Trinidad. So I’m thinking to do photos with captions of various people, places, and objects I’ve become accustom to- then give them all matching frames. I also want to include the pieces of costume, dabla, and other object findings from the house for the wall and give those captions too. It shall be a museum wall for discoveries and learning.

Inspiration for arranging things on the wall and when I curate the physical space will be drawn from experiences at Alice Yard, in helping with set up for the “Proximities” exhibit. The exhibit showcased artist work regarding personal space, gender discussions, and family influence on how they view identity. The videos were shown on various nights and projected onto various surfaces for presentation. It was interesting to watch the process of presenting projections in a yard space. Where will the best angle be? What material can it be projected on? Can the videos be viewed at the same time? Should the people in the video be life-sized or larger-than-life? How much volume is too much sound? What view of the Yard can be seen from the street? How close do we want people to get to the screen and what is the impact of proximity on the viewer? So many questions and only one way to find out: trial and error. It was a long night. Yet, the Alice Yard exhibit was a success.

On another note, I bought a two gallon bucket of Off White paint because I thought the crew was also going to paint the upstairs hallway and office and balcony, but more labor means more cost so that did not happen. I tried to return the paint on Saturday around 3pm because I can always use the money for something else, but apparently the shop closed at 1pm. I truly believe everything happens for a reason and now that the first floor is completed I have some time to consider painting the upstairs hallway and parts of the balcony railing. I really wish I could do something about the flooring up there (like repaint that too) but I have to draw the labor line somewhere soon.