Planning our Creativity

I am not a planner. I have two jobs that take up 60+ hours of my week where planning is key. I am all planned out after that.
My best bet is to watch for patterns of success, and work those patterns. Only then does planning come naturally to me. One of the successful patterns is having a range of different scales of projects.
In sewing this means a complex garment or a big quilt maybe, with a few simple jobs like repairs or small craft projects mixed around them. (my sewing lately has been short on big projects!)
Same with show projects - I've just come off one huge show project and I'm looking forward to the next couple being much simpler affairs for me - a photo shoot to accompany n interview I did recently and then just MCing on the night and belting out a couple of songs from my usual repertoire. The trick is to not convince myself that I need to make a new costume or write a new song for them - that's where all the panic and time wasting happens!

I am also the unapologetic owner of a personal whiteboard. It's BIG and it was free - it's actually the back of an annual planning whiteboard that was being thrown out. I learned from my corporate career that being able to write all over a whiteboard really did help us to organise thoughts and ideas and make them achievable. Not just wispy words in our heads.
So when I feel overwhelmed by projects and things to do, I write them on the board. This board covers the whole year to mid November, but not too deep unless it needs to be. It's the things I need to plan ahead for. The details I write down in lists on pads.
OK, OK This IS planning. I am deluded! But it is simple, visual and effective. And no time sheets and the budgets are far more fun!

On busy weeks and running away

My goodness what a busy time I've had! Between WIGSTOCK and last weekend it was all about Kabarett presents NACKTMUSIK. Rehearsing and sewing and travelling and organising and...all in a very hot summer!

Here we all are in the foyer afterwards Back row - Audience member, Trillian, Clever Hansel, Ellie Kat, Dahlia Dangerous, me, Front: Madame Vestris, Cherry Boomb, Leo Lennox.

Here's a weird selfie that Cherry took before the show, with me in the background.
Gosh it was full on but from a sewing point of view the highlight would have to be the robe I made for one little scene from Vogue 1493. With the amazing sleeves. More on that in its own post, when I get some photos! I'm doing a photo shoot on Thursday and thought I would wear it so hopefully Ill get some good ones.

Censored!

This photo of Clever and I was refused by the editor of a regional paper last week. The same paper happily runs beauty queens in bikinis and other scantily clad young women in the context of news (not page 3 stuff) but this was not acceptable. Why?

We never found out, but I have a few ideas. Gender ambiguity maybe? Daring to be old and fat and scantily clad instead of young and pretty maybe? It WAS by far the least confronting image from a photoshoot full of images. None of them really scandalous at all, not really.
Anyway as we had no time, I sent in this one instead and they ran with it:

It worked anyway. We oversold the 330 seat theatre and they had to add more seats!
More later!<3 p="">

WIGSTOCK - The last night of the Gardens

Starring PollyFilla and ME [and a bunch of other people] ;-) PollyFilla now lives in Melbourne and is the most recent recipient of entry into the Melbourne Drag Hall of Fame, which is a huge honour; makes me so proud to be his friend and mentee. Polly wanted to do a huge drag show to finish the Gardens Magic series of concerts that Wellington City Council operate each year. While he was in Aus up to his eyelashes in shows, we got a cast together and the rest is herstory!
The largest crowd ever (so I am told) gathered to watch us. Must have been nearly 2,000 people! Age range from babies to great grans.

 Synching to the Grass Is Always Greener from Woman of the Year. Me and PollyFilla

 Backstage, Polly (top) and Ellie Kat doing last minute sewing repairs. Two extremely talented (and qualified!) costumiers in their own rights.

 Polly opening the show!

 Here's a bit of the enormous crowd who came to watch. This is family friendly drag!

 Me on stage singing Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps. I had already done the lipsynch duet with Polly but I was still blown away singing to so many people!

 A close up taken by some lovely person on Facebook

Ross caught this moment with the breeze slightly lifting my skirt. It was a sensational evening - cool and calm which is always a huge relief when you are painted to the max and trussed into a tight frock!
All of the performers were amazing. It's surprisingly hard to find photos of us all though, and no word of any official photos as yet. So I'm not filtering out the other fantastic artists on purpose. I love them all!

Oooh look - Kaffe Fassett!

Brandon Mably and Kaffe Fassett came to visit my shop this week. Thanks to the amazing Sue and Shanon at Busy Bee quilting who sponsored the Wellington leg of their NZ tour this summer. They teach and speak and are amazing. I missed all of this as I am too busy being distracted, so I consider myself extremely blessed by this unexpected gift.
Brandon took the above pic on the verandah outside, in front of this wonderful mural. Kaffe spotted it and decided it was his kind of backdrop. Colour blending and painting is his style, not high contrast.
I love both these amazing people's work. I have a lot of Kaffe fabrics in my stash, that I treasure so much I can hardly bring myself to use them!
You couldn't meet two nicer men. They were encouraging about our beautiful shirts and shades and we had a wee gossip about some of the other players in the industry, not mean just fun things.
And, I sang them the bit of my Stashbusting about Kaffe and they wanted to see it so I sent the link.
Made my month, year, decade that did!

Courage vs Confidence

People are always admiring my confidence, because I will do mad stuff like this photoshoot in undies. The thing is, it doesn't work like that, I'm sharing this not to blow my own trumpet, but because I think it might help people who are scared of giving these things a go to understand how it works:

I do it because I am scared, but I screw up my courage and have a go. The confidence comes FROM this, it is not the beginning of the cycle. Experience has taught me that this will mostly happen, although sometimes the outcome is awful and humiliating and terrible, just as I fear it may be. But I live through it and have another go.

ANYHOO! THIS photoshoot is to publicise our show at Art Deco Weekend in Napier; KABARETT presents NacktMusik 

 This is a thrown together look that I am improving on for the show. YES, I am in a bra and cami knickers and I will be on stage. This is a really terrible idea in many ways but I'm doing it anyway. It is a terrible idea because in spite of knowing it is perfect for my character, some people will be very judgy about it.

 Especially when I am surrounded by these babes all evening! Spending a day with them all being so gorgeous in their scanties for this shoot was nerve-wracking, even though we all love each other and it is a very safe space full of trust and mutual respect.

 There's nothing typically sexy or titillating about this.

But, we will have fun and it all makes sense. Clever Hansel and I are married in this show. A somewhat unconventional relationship that is probably not a legal marriage, given my character's actual assigned gender is probably not the one I am identifying with here.

It is a Cabaret of weird, sexy and unexpected acts, tied loosely together by snippets of insight into the lives of the cast - their loves, losses, addictions and confusions.

I could have taken an easier path with this show and worn more clothes. When I first started performing, I would no more have done this than run naked down the street. But, the courage-action-confidence cycle has moved me a long way from then, and I hope that this show will be one of the wins. I am sure it will, actually, as it is something special.

Bra Busting!

People when you are my size, bras with stage appeal are non-existent.
But, I can sew! So recently in Christchurch when I had some time for once, I found this bra.
The stripy sheer fabric has a good Art Deco vibe. However, it lacks the slapper-like qualities needed for the character I am portraying. So, I hacked it!
Modesty forgoes an in situ photo of the process but basically I put it on and attacked it with the scissors, much like the red line, without cutting through the elastic and lace edging. I also cut away the black net lining so it is more transparent. Then I laid the edging back over the newly cut line and zig zagged it. It wasn't long enough but it doesn't matter as I then added a heavy lace strip along the top to hide it all. This is all for stage so the fairly rough approach is fine.

 I felt it needed some bling so I hauled out a sieve from the kitchen to act as a 3D mold to keep its shape.

 One sieve, one bra cup and off we go!

I could only do one cup at a time to let the glue dry (Aleene's Tacky is the best thing for sticking on rhinestones ever)

I haven't covered the whole cup as I just want to add some sparkle. The stones are black diamond so low contrast.
When it's all dry tomorrow I can try it on and decide if it needs anything else.
The photos are all at night so a bit rubbish. But not as rubbish as unpicking black lingerie was!
I bought this corset on half price sale and it fits perfectly in the front, just not enough to wrap all around moi, so I've unpicked the fastenings from down the back in order to add an extra panel of black power net on each side.

Jeepers all this naughty gear is a bit confronting. I'm not sure if I will be wearing ANY of it on stage as yet, but if I do it will be in a humorous context. :)