Collection of hand-painted vintage Mardi…
Collection of hand-painted vintage Mardi Gras backdrops used in balls from 1930-1960:
Huge - as in 3-4 stories tall. I love looking at the detail … and lack of detail. Because most folks would view these from a distance, so you’d have to paint enough to make the scenes and objects feel right, but not too much or the fine details take extra time, few would notice, and might detract by creating extra busyness in the image.
I pained a few theatre backdrops my senior year in high school (less than 1 story tall). Not because I signed up for the technical theatre class (build the sets, run the lights and sound boards, etc.), but because the administrators stuck me in the AP Calculus class (I had not passed the test but apparently they needed enough bodies in the classroom to have the class “make” for that year).
First day of school, the AP Calculus teacher reads out a list of names of those who should be there and tells everyone else to get out of his classroom.
So that’s how I got into the technical theatre class, discovered hanging out with my dad building things for the past 10 years gave me more carpentry knowledge than 95% of the folks in there, and that the expensive light board the previous theatre teacher had bought really wasn’t that daunting if you just read the fucking manual.
#theatre #mardigras #neworleans #personalhistory #rtfm