Work and Inspiration.

It's been about a week since I last posted. I've been meaning to make my mark here on my page, but work slows me down.
Just so you get the sense of what I do, I'm currently doing a lot at the moment.

1) I just closed a show I designed costumes for on Sunday night. The show was HABIBI by Sharif Abu-Hamdeh, a new work that premiered at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco.

2) I'm designing costumes for a production that opens in January. The show is, OUROBOROS, by Tom Jacobson and its with Renegade Theatre Experiment in San Jose.

3) During this whole year of 2010, I have been slowly but surely completing my thesis for my Masters of Fine Arts in Technical Theatre, with an emphasis in Costume Design. It's taking me longer than anticipated, but its coming along.

4) I am in the process of starting to sew Liturgical dance costumes for a church in Oakland.

5) Last but not least, my day job of working at a costume shop for a local Bay Area University. At the current moment, I am constructing a 60's Elvis jumpsuit, which will be the ghost of the past in a children's production of A Christmas Carol, named, SCROOGIE.

All in all, I'm very busy. That's all a part of being a freelance designer. Learning time management and learning your limitations.


A new lesson I am learning, is how to be inspired amidst all this busy work. At times, I lose momentum or inspiration. I look for ways to spark up the lost momentum and get back on the train.
So far I have a few things that help me, that I will share:

1) An online journaling website.
I have used a journal off and on through the years and I started back up. The basis of the site is off the idea of Julia Cameron's, The Artist's Way, which is a great book if you are suffering an artistic block. She advises some tips to help break the block, which all work. One main exercise, is journaling 3 pages a day or 750 words.
Trust me it works. I start having vivid dreams and it gives me ideas.

2) Reading. It gets my mind off of what I'm doing for a bit and into something new. Its proven that if you take breaks when you are problem solving or figuring what your next move is, stepping away from the task and doing another task not related to the original helps. The action of "getting your mind off of the idea" and onto something else, has your brain functioning in other ways behind the scenes, to help you figure out a problem later on.
Right now I'm reading, The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told by Alex Haley.
A wonderful book that everyone must read and I have a hard time putting down.

Those are a couple of my ideas for sparking inspiration. What are your exercises for sparking inspiration? Care to share?

It's like a Grand Opening...Again.

Welcome to my blog, again.
My name is Courtney and I am a Costume Designer. I previously had a blog in this same site, however, I decided to revamp it and give it a go again. As I repeat again, welcome!

On this site I'm hoping to educate and possibly give some insight to the day to day workings of a working freelance Costume Designer. I have perused many websites and I find that there is not too many Costume Designers out there speaking on what they do, adding their insight to the world and basically, not putting their voice out there. I'm hoping to add to the little puddle of designers in the hopes of expanding the puddle to possibly a stream or maybe something bigger.

As I stated previously, my name is Courtney, I'm a Freelance Costume Designer, I mainly work in thatre, which is so very rewarding and hopefully in the near future I would like to work in film more. With that being said, what a reader will find on my blog is information and insight on projects I'm working on, words and pictures of what inspires me, other things that serve as inspiration or are related to the costume world. On any given day, you will find a variety of different information.
I'm hoping that you as a reader will come along for the ride, see what it is I do for a living and be inspired.

Hugs,

Courtney :)