Work Space (Part 1)

My roomate/classmate/epicbuddyofkiltedawesomeness Patrick and I have taken to decorating our adopted space in the Senior Studio classroom to build a vibe and atmosphere that helps to both reflect and inspire each of our senior films. My stab at said decoration is going rather slowly, admittedly, as I've been so completely embroiled with background layouts, but it's getting there. Today saw to the addition of a lovely set of colored lights kindly lent by Kerry, as well as a few recent thrift store finds. A couple of photos of what I have so far are below - I'll post more as this "inspiration side-project" of sorts continues to grow. Perhaps by the end of the school year, my workspace will have become a bit of an assemblage piece all of its own?

The mat on my work table - a thrift store find - intrigues the hell out of me: hand stitched, with little mirror bits sewn into it throughout. Lovely as it is visually though, and weird as this may sound, it's the scent of the thing that gets my mind racing. It has that sort of musty air of too-long spent in a damp attic - a thick smell of great age. Handling it in the store nights ago, I was thrown back to a childhood memory I'd actually forgotten entirely until then - and one who's relevance to this whole cobbled production struck soundly.

My mother has always loved yard sales. My little brother and I would get carted around to them chronically on Saturday mornings as kids. In one instance, we visited a particularly rural home on a soggy, rainy day - I was about eight at the time. I recall the ground - huge patches of dirt paths being dark and damp and thickly scented, and the leaves and grass, post-storm to be almost unnaturally vivid. Bored with the sale - the attention span of a child - I wandered to explore the rickety old pull barn catty-cornered to the sellers' home. A tremendously aged old fellow - whether he was the homeowner, or perhaps a relative I do not know - spotted me there, and from the mounds of old things in the yard sale, he handed me a positively ancient looking rag doll. I was reluctant to take the thing - it was dirty, darkened from age, and in the grasp of what were, back then, rather frightening looking knotty old hands. But I did - bid my thanks, and skirted off as quickly.

It was a little peasant in the form of a doll. I remember instinctively the hand-sewn, patterned dress that it was wearing; A dress that was, at one time, likely incredibly vibrant. I have no idea how old that thing must of been. It was popping at the seems in areas - stuffed too tightly, to the point of great stiffness, its stuffing looking almost like wooden bits and other odd fibers I'd never seen before. It also quite thoroughly reeked of that unmistakable too-long-gone attic must. I was fascinated with the doll, for however brief a span - studying what felt like an impossibly old artifact in my hands, standing on a dirt path in the middle of fuck-nowhere central Florida. That creepy little Gypsy doll and I.

I missed that memory - am rather pleased to have it back. Needless to say, I had to get that table mat. It was $2.18 cents worth of childhood recollection, after all.

Concept art, photos of intrigue, schedules, and little snippets of anything I can find that's of interest. Some of the bulbs of my lovely strands of lights are blown... but I rather like the imperfection of it.

... My next goal? Finding a proper makeshift shade for this window!

-Mel