I've been distracted away from blogging by many things including a chauffeur job, returning to full time illustration, and Indiana Jones. More on the first two later.
Within a day of the Arts and Ideas Festival ending, the same New Haven streets were taken over by Paramount Pictures filming the fourth Indiana Jones. Being addicted to spectacle I couldn't stay away from it. Chapel Street was turned into the 1950's, from the removal of parking meters, to the rebuilding of facades, down to the smallest details of the window displays. Dozens of old cars, hundreds of extras in period costume, and a whole city of crew, trailors, trucks and equipment comfortably settled in all around town. A casual stroll through the city might have brought you a motorcycle chase being filmed, or one of Indiana's many doubles, or the real Steven Spielberg walking down High Street for a paper.
What was even more interesting then the filming was watching New Haveners take everything in stride with the most laid back sort of curiosity. The few aggressive gawkers I met in my extensive wandering turned out to be out of town professional autograph hunters, who were also fascinating with their intricate network of watchers stationed at key locations, passing valuable information on to each other. If you wanted to know the best place to see something, follow one of these people, though information from them directly is certain to be intentionaly false.
First photo: College Street filled with 1950s cars and trucks. Next photos: Chapel Street transformed into a movie set, and it's steady stream of onlookers who were never kept too far away by the crew. All the shops stayed open behind their facades, with vinyl signs of their true identity displayed while filming was on hold. The promanade went on day and night for a couple of weeks. My favorite hunters who professed to have obtained autographs from Spielberg, Lucas, and Shia LaBeouf, but were out for the elusive great white whale: Harrison Ford.
It's my 6th year doing the New Haven City Wide Open Studios Alternative Space. We're back in the former Hamden Middle School, and I'm so happy to be sharing a room with three super talented friends: Tony Baloney Juliano, Meg Giannotti, and Kim Mikenis. This week they've been busy working on cleaning and decorating the Computer Lab, while my space (last photo) is a bit lagging. But with my mom's help, by Saturday it'll be rocking. www.cwos.org for info and directions. 
A package from Houghton Mifflin arrived today with 2 copies of The Water Gift in Japanese. I was excited enough to blog about it, and while posting I saw this on Blue Rose Girls posted today. My life abounds with synchronicity lately.
Figuring out how to pack and ship the angel took about as long as making her. I had to build a form fitting box that fit within another box. I felt bad for the art handlers who had to deal with my detailed instructions, but the Child at Heart people took it in stride. She's currently on display at the Newburyport, MA library, and goes onto the Danforth Museum on October 31 as part of the Robert's Snow exhibition.
The fall semester of Quinnipiac University Puppetry that I teach with Bob Bresnick has started. The first week: handpuppets. Not much beats the enjoyment in getting people to interact with puppets. There's all sorts of discomfort, awkwardness and humor, and occasional tiny moments of puppet awakenings which are thrilling. 
I'm just about done with my snowflake contribution to this year's Robert's Snow auction. Below, my snowflakes from the first two years.
Robert Mercer passed away Monday night. Messages for Grace can be left on her blog or the Blue Rose Blog. The Robert's Snow project, founded in Robert's honor, is still going strong this year. The snowflakes will be auctioned in November and December.
I bought this rolling toolbox last year for my puppet class supplies. Over the summer it turned into my traveling show box.
Everything fits perfectly into it, the books, puppets, table set up, and my dance shoes.
The last show I did was in an outdoor courtyard with no wall to tape my 6 x 6 foot paper to, so Karl designed and built me this wall, which is 2 theater flats clamped together and mounted onto feet. It's light weight and fits in my Oldsmobile sedan. 
I used to dream about being a traveling gypsy performer, especially the part about having a show that packed up neatly and moved around. I love sets that come apart, and boxes, and fitting things into boxes. I'm sure it's my grandfather's influence again. And my mum, who loves organization. 
Catching up this blog, as promised. I'm back to work as a full time illustrator for the first time since last November and it feels great. Just completed: the dummy for the book that was put on hold, the Tibetan Chiru, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin for Houghton Mifflin, who have all been so good to me through the hand trauma.
The Chapel Street store windows during the filming.
The cars were beautiful, and many of them had hidden agendas. This one had a back window that popped out, and many replacement windows stacked in the truck behind it. Inside, the elegant console, with the addition of mysterious modern switches. 
I've been distracted away from blogging by many things including a chauffeur job, returning to full time illustration, and Indiana Jones. More on the first two later. 
