Educational practice
Costume Design Special Faculty
CalArts School of Theater
2018-present
Advanced Patternmaking
This full semester class for BFA and MFA costume design students takes a non-traditional approach to the teaching of patterning, focused on developing an intuitive sense of 3-dimensional geometry rather than memorizing step-by-step instructions. Complex forms are broken up into cylinders and cones, which are then examined as 2-dimensional shapes which can be combined to create more complex patterns. The parallels between this technique and figure drawing exercises are emphasized, positing that pattern drafting can be seen as just another form of drawing.
Clothing And Language
This six week class for BFA students from across disciplines focuses on pose and body language as performative elements in conversation with costume design. Students seek out visual research showing body language or posture they find compelling, then spend several weeks using a variety of drawing exercises to formally analyze the pose before allowing that analysis to inform possible costume design ideas. Students are required to physically mock up their designs, feeling the pose in their own bodies and experiencing how the costume affects the performer.
Body Padding and Rigging
This class has been taught as both a six week introductory BFA workshop, and as a full-semester advanced techniques class for both BFA and MFA Students. In both cases the focus is on analyzing the various ways that clothing can be shaped in 3-dimensions. Three basic approaches are examined in detail: the use of the fullness of fabric itself to create volume, the use of boning and wire to suspend fabric from a frame, and the use of foam and batting to support fabric shapes from underneath. The class covers both specific techniques for working with a variety of non-traditional materials, and a more general study of rigging costumes to move and function as needed.
Papier Mache Sculpture
This six week BFA class is intended as a cross-disciplinary exploration of 3-dimensional form, and the use of 2-dimensional materials to create volume. The inexpensive and renewable qualities of paper and cardboard are celebrated as an ideal medium to mock up sculptural ideas of all sorts. The technical challenge of creating smooth three dimensional shapes using strips of flat paper provides unexpected insight into the geometry of curved surfaces, with direct applications to figure drawing as well as other forms of visual art.
Designing with Stretch Fabrics
This six week workshop focuses on the unique possibilities of costuming with stretch fabrics. The class examines the history and use of spandex and lycra both for inner support garments, and for outer garments that either drape or conform to the body in ways that would otherwise be impossible.
Animal Mask Making
This 6 week class focuses on design and construction techniques to achieve a sense of realism in masks depicting animal (or human) faces. The class centers research into facial bone structure, analyzing the skulls of various species from different angles to understand how the angles of the various planes of the face allow us to distinguish between different animals as well as different people. The connections to portrait drawing techniques are emphasized.
Aging and Distressing Workshop
This 1-2 hour workshop has been presented as a lecture over Zoom, and also as a hands-on exercise. The focus is on understanding the role of aging and distressing garments in costume design, and how to plan and execute effective distressing. The emphasis is on the role of costume design in storytelling, and identifying which details in the costume should be noticed consciously by the viewer, and which should remain part of the background.