La Bricoleuse

We're currently in production on our repertory shows this year, Into the Woods and Midsummer Night's Dream. Today, I've got a behind-the-scene peek into one of the many cool special effects we're doing in the costume crafts world to create these two huge, magical shows.

Our costume designer for Into the Woods is Bill Brewer, of UNC-School of the Arts. I've been aware of Bill's work for years and met him many times at conferences and symposia, but we'd never worked together. Really excited to have the chance on this great show!

For his concept of the Witch's first costume, he envisioned a dress covered with actual vegetation from her garden, in which Jack's magic beans grow.
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One of my graduate students, Samantha Coles (a rising 2nd-year), has a very specific area of focus: custom cordwaining.

She's taking the usual courseload for an MFA in Costume Production in terms of classwork in draping, tailoring, millinery, and so forth, but her longterm goal is one of shoemaker, and whenever we get shoe projects for mainstage shows, I kick them to her (ha ha, bad pun), for her portfolio and work experience. So, for example, in the recent Importance of Being Earnest, she did a shoe modification for Ray Dooley as "Lady Bracknell," turning a pair of what was essentially a men's-sized character shoe into a period court shoe with an ornamental vamp.

Now that summer's here, she and i devised plans for some independent projects we hadn't time for during the mainstage season and school year. One of these was to explore the last-casting method devised by Mary Wales Loomis in her book, Make Your Own Shoes.

A shoe last is kind of like a cross between a dress form and a hat block, but for feet. It is the matrix upon which a shoe is constructed. As with hat blocks, you need a last for every permutation of a style, so if you are going to do a single shoe design for retail, you need a right and left last for every size you are going to release. Custom couture shoemakers like Louboutin will cast the feet of their bespoke clients and make lasts specifically for a single patron.

Loomis outlines a method in her book for casting shoe lasts in plaster from existing damaged shoes you love. You have to be willing to sacrifice a pair of shoes to this project, but on the upside, if you succeed, you have lasts from them on which you can build lots of future pairs just like them or similar in fit/feel.

In addition to your pair of sacrificial shoes, this method requires the following supplies: tape, plaster, water, utility knife, crappy funnel, petroleum jelly or other mold release, and finishing tools like sandpaper, rasps, and chisels. It also requires a willingness to get messy, and i thought that some points we were helped by having two pairs of hands, so if you can partner with a pal or colleague, that's probably best.

We figured that a pair of lasts takes about four cups of plaster and two cups of water, and that mixing batches any larger than that was not practical--it just sets up too fast. And, if you try this, be sure to clean up your mixing bowl between batches, or the catalyzing happens so fast you can't get the stuff mixed and poured.

( photos of the process! )

Recall that i mentioned the fact that we do not have a large mask collection at my workplace. However, we do have some cool ones worth checking out, so i present for you here a photo-essay of masks in the collection of the PlayMakers Repertory Company of North Carolina. The photos even include process shots for a complete set of goblin masks from The Snow Queen...


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I thought i'd kick off 2007 with the final installment of my four-part studio setup series!

For those who haven't been following this series, Part One is here, which addresses the equipment and inventory needs of a typical dyeshop or "wet room," Part Two is here, which focuses on specific equipment and inventory utilized in leatherworking, distressing, and shoe-related areas, and Part Three is here, which is an overview of millinery equipment and various supplies used in hat and headdress production.

As for why i first sat down to develop these lists, some background:

The MFA program where i teach allows the students to focus in a range of non-design areas of professional costuming: draping, tailoring, craftwork, or costume shop management. The fall semester's management seminar topic was "Sourcing and Supplies"--this is not just how and where to find everything from a spoon busk to an industrial shoe-patching machine, but also strategies for addressing shop supply inventories, storage, etc.

I gave a guest-lecture in that course last semester on the appurtenancing of a crafts space. The thrust of the matter was, what if a managerial candidate was hired and coming into a space where s/he had to either set up a crafts shop from scratch, or analyze the existing inventory of a crafts area and do supply ordering for the beginning of a season with no aid from a staff crafts artisan. I am posting a brief overview of what i touched on in a four-part series:

Setting up a Dye Shop/Wet Room
Cobbling, Leatherworking, and Distressing Equipment and Supplies
Millinery Equipment and Supplies
Specialized Crafts from Parasols and Purses to Plaster Molds

This post is the fourth and final one. I want to touch on a variety of areas, not all of which will be applicable to all shops. A manager may just as easily find herself or himself working at a Shakespeare Festival shop (where armor is of great import), as at a LORT theatre that only produces shows in 19th or 20th century settings (not so much armor, perhaps, but potentially lots of parasols or jewelry). This is the "everything else" post, stuff that didn't fit under one of the other three topics but is nonetheless important to consider!


Jewelry--Whether you think your shop will actually custom-make jewelry in-house, your crafts artisan is guaranteed to have to repair it or alter it on occasion. Supplies include:

Findings--clasps (lever and magnetic), jump rings, split rings, chain
Ornaments--Bulk beads and pendants
Soldering iron/solder/flux
Polyclay & push-molds (useful to make your own cabuchons and the like)

If you think your crafts artisan(s) may be manufacturing high-end jewelry in-house, you might want to look into investing in some precious metal clay (PMC) and a mini-kiln, and perusing the catalogues of an industry supplier such as Rio Grande.


Craft-props, a.k.a. "Propstumes"--These items often fall to the crafts artisan's responsibility to make, since even though they are technically props, the costume designer is usually responsible for designing them. Potential supplies needed:

Purse frames
Parasol frames
Pocketwatch fobs and findings

It can be hard to find quality modern supplies in this area. For example, nearly all modern long-handled parasol frames have a six-paneled dome. What if your designer has created one with a ten-paneled dome? Sure, you can work out a way to alter the frame, but it's easier if you have an acceptable frame to start with. And what about unusual purse frames, like accordion-hinged reticule closures? I regularly check local "junk shops" and eBay for these items.


Masks, Moldmaking/Casting, SFX makeup--Masks may come around once in a while for your crafts artisan, but chances are, a craftsperson who can cast things will save your butt (and budget!) many times over, particularly if you need something like 40 large ornamental medallions or buttons or similar. Buy one or two and have her/him cast as many as you need. And, I always argue that production should hire a specialist when SFX makeup is required--prosthetics or extreme gore effects. However, all too often in theatre no one wants to budget for that and it often falls to the crafts department to come up with SFX appliances for stage use. These are some of the materials that may help out with these projects.

Alginate
Plaster
Gauze
Latex
Silicone
Oak tanned/kip leather (tip: bellies are often cheapest)
Phlex Glue
Thermoplastic sheeting and mesh
Casting rubbers, plastics, and foams
Mold release products

Be aware that many casting products have a definite shelf-life. It does no use to keep things on hand if they will be useless by the time you need them. Ordering these kinds of supplies needs to happen as projects come up, unless you are heading up the kind of shop that you know you will have several casting projects per season.


Bigheads, Walkarounds, Macropuppets, etc.--these are some supplies useful for creating extreme-shape frameworks in-house.

Skirt hooping
Steel slatting
Aluminum armature wire
Body-mount options such as snare drum marching mounts and backpacking frames
Head-mount options such as bike or hockey helmets
Acrylic rods/bamboo/dowels/etc.


Armor--these are some supplies useful to have if you plan on manufacturing stage armor in-house.

Industrial felt
Sculpt or Coat
Shellac
Backer rod (ethafoam tube)
Glover’s needles
“Apoxie” (2-part epoxy clay)

...Or, if you need to purchase-and-alter armor, check out the vacu-formed shapes sold by vendors like Costume Armor, and the metal helmets and pieces made by Windlass Steelcrafts (sold by a number of vendors).



Note that these lists are to be treated as suggestions, a jumping-off point. Also be aware that if the dimensions and ventilation of your craft space are limited, you may wish to avoid all products that would require the use of respirators. If you do use casting media, solder, and adhesives that require respirators, be aware that OSHA requires you to have a training program in place for all employees that will need to use respirators. When ordering these products, make sure you always ask for the MSDS. You need to have them on file, and they have a lot of good information that will help make decisions like what types of protective gloves and respirator filters to purchase.

And, that concludes my series on setting up a crafts studio! Hope it was of some use or perhaps at least interesting to read about in parts. Or, if you hated it, rejoice! It's over!

Now we can get on to all the exciting topics that Spring has in store, namely tons of hats and shoes, which i don't know about you, but hats and shoes are two of my very favorite things in the world, and i'm super exciting to be teaching seminars on both this spring. We've got some cool stuff coming up on our mainstage, too, so i suspect there will be more posts on distressing and painting/dyeing in that realm, as well.

Happy 2007, y'all!