I had always been interested in art growing up. I have enjoyed drawing and painting since I was young and could only make blobs. It was never really a question of “if I was going to college”, that was a non-negotiable in my household. My parents would do whatever was necessary to make sure my brother and I were able to attend college. I had always wanted to go to college, too, but I never knew what I actually wanted to go for, because I grew up hearing how art wasn’t a stable path. It wasn’t until my first semester of my senior year in high school, when my theatre directors gave me the courage to pursue the path I’m on. I’m grateful for the path I’ve chosen and the ways in which it has helped me grow and thrive.

Currently, I have just completed my first academic year at UT-Austin. When I reflect on this year, I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. I started working as a Fabrication Student Assistant at Texas Performing Arts, light board op-ed for the first time, and plan to work on a production next semester. I’ve also met a new community of people that share the same passion as me, and make me look forward to working with them.

I think that biologically, humans need community to survive, and that can only come from collaboration and the willingness to make things work. Even the most introverted people need a network of people to support them. Community makes communication, commitment, and collaboration a necessity. One of the lessons throughout this semester that stood out to me, that I think ties back to the idea of collaboration, was our focus on Hope during the devising section. Being able to work with each other despite challenges is just as important as having hope that you’ll reach the intended goal.

This past semester, I light board op-ed for the first time, and was able to experience a new perspective within a production. Before, I usually worked in scenic design and when it came time for shows, I’d be in the running crew behind the curtain. This time, I was able to watch the show come to life in front of me, and watch how elements of light, costumes, sound, projections, and set all interact with each other. Not only that, but I got a better understanding of how stage managers really do keep a show together, and what it means to keep every part of the show moving.

In my Design for Performance class, we partnered up and built a white model with a partner. This was my first time making a model, and it was a really interesting process to learn, especially with a partner. However, no matter how stressful it seemed, I knew I was able to count on my partner and trust that they were just as committed as I was. We had to be honest with each other on our ideas and how we wanted to execute them to meet our goals.

When it came to the Altar Piece I decided to just follow a string of ideas and see where that led me. Instead of thinking an idea was too strange or didn’t fit the theme, I wanted to test it out and see what worked, what didn’t, and allow myself to change my mind and let go of ideas. I wanted to think outside the box, yet choose something that was natural to me. I ended up making a group of mountains, cut out to stand up like one of those books with drawings that pop out at you. I put faces into the mountains and made the surface they’d be on flat. Although I had wanted to use watercolor, I realized that might not work, and used colored pencils and markers instead. 

When it came to my final design project in Design for Performance, I decided to take these methods and apply them to my model for The House of Bernarda-Alba. I looked at different designs of the production as well as of productions that I just liked, in general, to figure out exactly what elements I was drawn to and how I could incorporate them. I also really wanted to do something similar to the Altar Piece, where I chose something natural but changed it to be a bit “unnatural”. I figured out that I wanted to play with asymmetrical shapes that balanced each other out, and I really liked the balcony from Romeo y Julie. Instead of making the balcony a triangle that pointed towards the audience, I made it go inwards, and then stretched it out so the ends were at an angle. The arches were symmetrical, but I wanted the windows and doors to balance each other out. I think that making the balcony an interesting shape really helped me come up with ideas for the rest of the set.