This week, I accomplished:
I have gained a director, a makeup artist, two potential lighting designers, a costumer, a crew member, and started my Nellie family tree.
The sources I consulted this week were:
The Autobiography of Nellie C. Cornish.
By next week, I want to have accomplished:
Finish Nellie family tree. Fill the holes between the academic time line of her life, and of her personal life as well. Make DEADLINES for writing.
What obstacles stand in the way of your progress?
Time. And over thinking.
What steps can I take to move forward?
Simply write for an hour each day. Don't judge as it comes out.
In this week's seminar, I want to discuss:
I would like a day to work, which is what we are going to do I believe.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
10/12 Specifically Specific Prep Sheet
This week, I accomplished:
I accomplished getting my space for the performance, and my dates. Room 313 at Kerry, running April 8th-18th. I gained a sophomore fan who heard about my solo show, found me, and asked me if she could help in any way on the project. I think I may use her for crew. :) I gained a couple new perspectives...they are still settling in. I think I got back to something I had forgotten about Nellie.
The sources I consulted this week were:
The space. I'm a frequent visitor to room 313. Usually at night because it's the only time I have, and it's an interesting time to be there. Then a security guard peeks his head in wondering why I'm just on my lap top and not playing the piano.
By next week, I want to have accomplished:
Okay. Specifics. I want to organize the letter section of my casebook. I then want to write a section of the play using letters and writing in another characters voice beside my own. I want to tackle a Nellie monologue. I want to get back to the facts and play with making them active, possibly a montage of Nellie past moments, like her frontier upbringing. Also, Nellie specific timeline: Need to get going!
What obstacles stand in the way of your progress?
Time. Always time. Have to be off book for Quilters, Act 1. Then there is new music to learn. And keeping up with memorizing new monologues...and scenes...oy. And fatigue.
What steps can I take to move forward?
Making a timeline of the time I have left in class, compared to how much time I have left before the show. Organizing first, then writing, then organizing a little more, then writing. I could make an outline of my "woule be" show, even if I don't stick to it, so I can portion out the sections I'm writing.
In this week's seminar, I want to discuss:
I want to discuss...just where everyone else is. I feel in a different place than everyone, but not at the same time. It's weird. I want to see the shape people's final presentation might be.
I accomplished getting my space for the performance, and my dates. Room 313 at Kerry, running April 8th-18th. I gained a sophomore fan who heard about my solo show, found me, and asked me if she could help in any way on the project. I think I may use her for crew. :) I gained a couple new perspectives...they are still settling in. I think I got back to something I had forgotten about Nellie.
The sources I consulted this week were:
The space. I'm a frequent visitor to room 313. Usually at night because it's the only time I have, and it's an interesting time to be there. Then a security guard peeks his head in wondering why I'm just on my lap top and not playing the piano.
By next week, I want to have accomplished:
Okay. Specifics. I want to organize the letter section of my casebook. I then want to write a section of the play using letters and writing in another characters voice beside my own. I want to tackle a Nellie monologue. I want to get back to the facts and play with making them active, possibly a montage of Nellie past moments, like her frontier upbringing. Also, Nellie specific timeline: Need to get going!
What obstacles stand in the way of your progress?
Time. Always time. Have to be off book for Quilters, Act 1. Then there is new music to learn. And keeping up with memorizing new monologues...and scenes...oy. And fatigue.
What steps can I take to move forward?
Making a timeline of the time I have left in class, compared to how much time I have left before the show. Organizing first, then writing, then organizing a little more, then writing. I could make an outline of my "woule be" show, even if I don't stick to it, so I can portion out the sections I'm writing.
In this week's seminar, I want to discuss:
I want to discuss...just where everyone else is. I feel in a different place than everyone, but not at the same time. It's weird. I want to see the shape people's final presentation might be.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Nellie Opens Yet Another Door: To Dance!
So my friend Katherine, who is a wonderful choreographer, asked me if she could choreograph a dance on Nellie Cornish for her choreography class, and I would be her dancer! How fun is that! I get to perform it for her class this Thursday. So this is what I sent her for inspiration:
“It’s quite all right to sit around dreaming. That’s another thing. But I just don’t want to see you sitting around wasting time just daydreaming.” – Nellie Cornish
“I was always dissatisfied with formal education as I knew it. My chief concern was in cultivating the whole man, the whole woman. It has always been my belief that the musician should know something about the dance, art, the theater and literature. The dancer should know something about the other methods of artistic expression, and so on. Our philosophy of education was based in the principle that we were not producing musicians, dancers, artists and actors but human beings.” – Nellie Cornish
“Well, at least I am not destroyed and at least we were not disgraced and it was very distinguished.” – Nellie Cornish speaking to Martha Graham after one of her solo performances given in association with Cornish.
“She was a small, round, plump little lady with the dynamism of a rocket, and we were all terrified of her, terrified of her tongue, and, in a way, terrified of her dream.” – Martha Graham
“Mother always insisted upon an integration of the arts – the basic tenet upon which Cornish was founded. But it was never her aim to develop artists or dancers or writers. She wanted to see more well-rounded personalities – individual personalities – in the world. People who could think and act with intelligence.” – Elena Miramova
“My mother continually preached that we should not be imitators. She was constantly opening doors for others – doors into new ideas. We, too, must open doors for others, and invite them, not push them, through.” – Elena Miramova
“She ran the school on love. When a student got in trouble, she’d call her in and always took the teacher’s side. When I got to know her better, I found out that she then called the teacher in and took the student’s side.” – Theodosia Young
“She bamboozled everyone. How else could you entice some of the greatest artists of the day into taking the wagon train to the last frontier to teach a bunch of heathens? She was an incredible bamboozler. And she delivered. She did it in style, too. – Dave Crockett (Senior Vice President of KOMO television and radio, and Cornish Alumni, from article written in the 1970’s.)
“It may be true that she was extravagant for the school, but she was not for herself. The students loved what was provided by Aunt Nellie – endless work stimulated and interwoven with color and glamour, guided by her perception and devotion, and with luck, and money from the new lumber and shipbuilding fortunes, playing their part as well.” – Ellen Van Volkenberg Browne
“She lives on in everyone who knew her, who came near her. She herself would say: the road lies ever onward.” – Ellen Van Volkenburg Browne
“Many a student went to her for assistance, such as food, the unpaid rent of a room, encouragement upon the path – a mother-tender to all such things she was, but also a mother who knew how to give a spiritual slap when needed. The old saying that it is always darkest near the lighthouse was never more true.” – Mark Tobey
“She placed her values in the spiritual in man, and on this plane nothing is ever lost, for it exists beyond time and space.” – Mark Tobey
“A Miss, as she never married, but never an old-miss in that as years advanced no withheld energies clogged her full and outgoing expression of life.” – Mark Tobey
What I wrote Kat: I think what strikes me is her love for all things beautiful, but she herself was always seen as plain. She loved birds, and mountain ranges, and open sky. Her mind seemed of the air, but her body was of the earth, and her will was like a water that cut through canyons. I'm telling you this poetically to give you movement ideas, so forgive me if I'm cheesy, and I know you like elements. Her colors were dark green, and purple. She had a force within that moved mountains and sparkled through her eyes. She had stubby hands that couldn't reach all of the piano keys, but as Martha Graham says, she had "the dynamism of a rocket". She was a pot of contradictions in all areas. Also, I don't know if you need music, but she was influenced by piano and loved bells and gongs and percussive instruments.
“It’s quite all right to sit around dreaming. That’s another thing. But I just don’t want to see you sitting around wasting time just daydreaming.” – Nellie Cornish
“I was always dissatisfied with formal education as I knew it. My chief concern was in cultivating the whole man, the whole woman. It has always been my belief that the musician should know something about the dance, art, the theater and literature. The dancer should know something about the other methods of artistic expression, and so on. Our philosophy of education was based in the principle that we were not producing musicians, dancers, artists and actors but human beings.” – Nellie Cornish
“Well, at least I am not destroyed and at least we were not disgraced and it was very distinguished.” – Nellie Cornish speaking to Martha Graham after one of her solo performances given in association with Cornish.
“She was a small, round, plump little lady with the dynamism of a rocket, and we were all terrified of her, terrified of her tongue, and, in a way, terrified of her dream.” – Martha Graham
“Mother always insisted upon an integration of the arts – the basic tenet upon which Cornish was founded. But it was never her aim to develop artists or dancers or writers. She wanted to see more well-rounded personalities – individual personalities – in the world. People who could think and act with intelligence.” – Elena Miramova
“My mother continually preached that we should not be imitators. She was constantly opening doors for others – doors into new ideas. We, too, must open doors for others, and invite them, not push them, through.” – Elena Miramova
“She ran the school on love. When a student got in trouble, she’d call her in and always took the teacher’s side. When I got to know her better, I found out that she then called the teacher in and took the student’s side.” – Theodosia Young
“She bamboozled everyone. How else could you entice some of the greatest artists of the day into taking the wagon train to the last frontier to teach a bunch of heathens? She was an incredible bamboozler. And she delivered. She did it in style, too. – Dave Crockett (Senior Vice President of KOMO television and radio, and Cornish Alumni, from article written in the 1970’s.)
“It may be true that she was extravagant for the school, but she was not for herself. The students loved what was provided by Aunt Nellie – endless work stimulated and interwoven with color and glamour, guided by her perception and devotion, and with luck, and money from the new lumber and shipbuilding fortunes, playing their part as well.” – Ellen Van Volkenberg Browne
“She lives on in everyone who knew her, who came near her. She herself would say: the road lies ever onward.” – Ellen Van Volkenburg Browne
“Many a student went to her for assistance, such as food, the unpaid rent of a room, encouragement upon the path – a mother-tender to all such things she was, but also a mother who knew how to give a spiritual slap when needed. The old saying that it is always darkest near the lighthouse was never more true.” – Mark Tobey
“She placed her values in the spiritual in man, and on this plane nothing is ever lost, for it exists beyond time and space.” – Mark Tobey
“A Miss, as she never married, but never an old-miss in that as years advanced no withheld energies clogged her full and outgoing expression of life.” – Mark Tobey
What I wrote Kat: I think what strikes me is her love for all things beautiful, but she herself was always seen as plain. She loved birds, and mountain ranges, and open sky. Her mind seemed of the air, but her body was of the earth, and her will was like a water that cut through canyons. I'm telling you this poetically to give you movement ideas, so forgive me if I'm cheesy, and I know you like elements. Her colors were dark green, and purple. She had a force within that moved mountains and sparkled through her eyes. She had stubby hands that couldn't reach all of the piano keys, but as Martha Graham says, she had "the dynamism of a rocket". She was a pot of contradictions in all areas. Also, I don't know if you need music, but she was influenced by piano and loved bells and gongs and percussive instruments.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Confronting the Nellie
I realized one never knows where one will end up. Things can change so completely the next moment that I can only hope for a certain way for my life to turn out…
Live in the moment…live in the moment….cease the day…
Nellie put her faith in people. In man, that he would carry out his work to the fullest, that the creation would exceed the creator…
Her creation exceeded her in some ways.
What happens if one strives for the best? For what can be actually possible? Or overly impossible? Aim for the impossible?
Nellie use to say that the path leaves ever onward. So I walk onward. So many people tell me I'm stronger than I give myself credit for.
I heard that If you never do art that makes you feel uncomfortable, than you’re never really searching your potential.
Well this is making me uncomfortable. This whole process. It's wonderful and scary and stretching and soul searching. She has helped me to find myself, to not fear the future…but I'm so unsure of what the future holds…or what form it may even take.
I don't know what kind of person I would be in a world without Nellie.
These past four years have been some of the most defining years of my life, and she has been with me through all of it. She has not always been an approving role model. At times I would think, if Nellie were alive she would probably not even waste her time on me. What kind of artist am I to her if I am constantly putting down my own work? What would she say to me? I have a feeling she would give me a couple good spiritual slaps. People have described her as being terrifying. Sometimes I'm terrified of where her memory might take me. I'm afraid of confronting the Nellie Cornish...but its going to happen. I'm going to start writing in her voice sooner or later.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
10/5 Seminar Prep
This week, I accomplished:
I found out what the Bok Singing towers were. I found an image on Nellie's memorial card from her funeral, and there was a picture of the Bok Singing towers in Florida. I wonder why it had this tower on it, and when I looked it up I understood why. The tower houses a carillon, which is a type of outdoor piano that plays bells. It's amazing. Nellie was a musician so it fits. I also had a meeting with John Wilson and talked about casebooks, as well as other issues with my project. I met with Molly Scott and we have decided that most of my work in the archives will focus on making a Nellie Cornish casebook. I also started the first draft of my script for my solo show.
By next week, I want to have accomplished:
I want to have worked a lot of the factual information I have into the script and nit it in with the things that are from my experience. I also want to have started a classier version of my casebook than my big honking unorganized folder. Another goal is to get the space for my project situated out.
What obstacles stand in the way of your progress?
Time. I'm tired from having rehearsal every night. And school. And feeling like I'm not very organized.
What steps can I take to move forward?
I can better manage my time, I can also write my script in bits and pieces, I don't have to tackle the entire thing, and it can be many different styles. I don't have to stick to one yet.
In this week's seminar, I want to discuss:
I found out what the Bok Singing towers were. I found an image on Nellie's memorial card from her funeral, and there was a picture of the Bok Singing towers in Florida. I wonder why it had this tower on it, and when I looked it up I understood why. The tower houses a carillon, which is a type of outdoor piano that plays bells. It's amazing. Nellie was a musician so it fits. I also had a meeting with John Wilson and talked about casebooks, as well as other issues with my project. I met with Molly Scott and we have decided that most of my work in the archives will focus on making a Nellie Cornish casebook. I also started the first draft of my script for my solo show.
The sources I consulted this week were:
John Wilson, Molly Scott, and the letters from the archives.
John Wilson, Molly Scott, and the letters from the archives.
By next week, I want to have accomplished:
I want to have worked a lot of the factual information I have into the script and nit it in with the things that are from my experience. I also want to have started a classier version of my casebook than my big honking unorganized folder. Another goal is to get the space for my project situated out.
What obstacles stand in the way of your progress?
Time. I'm tired from having rehearsal every night. And school. And feeling like I'm not very organized.
What steps can I take to move forward?
I can better manage my time, I can also write my script in bits and pieces, I don't have to tackle the entire thing, and it can be many different styles. I don't have to stick to one yet.
In this week's seminar, I want to discuss:
I want to possibly do a reading of some of my script.
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