It’s So Spikey! (plus G23 reaches 10,000 hits!)

To continue my interest in the language of the theatre, I’ve been working with spikes. I started about a month ago and developed my idea across two mediums—installation and drawing.

What is a spike? Straight from Wikipedia:

In stagecraft, a spike is a marking (Usually a piece of tape, though some houses use paint pens) put on the stage to show placement for set pieces, furniture, actors and the like… For furniture items and trucks the marks are usually two pieces of tape laid at right angles at two corners of the item. Usually this will be the upstage corners to minimise the visual impact. The Stage Manager will use different colours to indicate positions of items for different scenes and sometimes will also write on the tape what the spike is for.

The first thing I want to mention is that Art, by definition, should make a visual impact. So to deter from the idea that spikes are supposed to be guides for the individuals on stage and not a distraction from the audience’s experience, my work focuses on the presence of the spikes. To emphasize the mark, I spiked every corner rather than only two. This continues my interest in bringing the unseen of the theatre, into the spotlight.

Alright, so here we go. My first endeavor was to spike my entire studio. I like to think of the physical space I am in at the moment as my stage in life. While there may not be a determined downstage, upstage, stage left or stage right, the idea that I am on a stage at that moment is important. If such is the case, then the furniture around me acts as set pieces. I decided to spike each piece of furniture with bold colored vinyl electrical tape, and call the installation Spike (Studio 23).

Wouldn’t it be amazing if someone’s living room or office were completely spiked in this rainbow palette? It’s completely odd to have the marks all over my studio because it really makes me feel like I’m on a stage. So Spike (Studio 23) was completed and it made me feel like all was right on the stage of my life—set pieces in place, the show is ready to go.

Then I decided to take the furniture away and see what would happen to the installation. It was odd, again, as if I’ve seen this before. Oh wait, I have!

Flashback: When I was younger, my first professional theatre debut was in Paper Mill Playhouse’s South Pacific. I was 10 years old, my first big show, and everything was exciting. After a few days of music and script rehearsal, we moved to a rehearsal studio space in Manhattan where a mini-stage model was resting on a table complete with small-scale set pieces for each scene. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the director to try to explain to kid-Jeffrey that there’s going to be a gigantic island in the middle of the stage, among all the other set pieces in the show. In the rehearsal space, there were no set pieces because everything was still being created. The only thing guiding kid-Jeffrey where to run with his wet loincloth (ask me about my costume sometime) were the spikes on the floor. Instead of right-angle marks, the tape pretty much traced the contour of every set piece, no matter how big it was. It was so weird! I vividly remember looking down at all the colored lines on the floor, especially the staircase that I had to run up and down on—it was simply four rectangles next to each other.

So that brings me back to seeing Spike (Studio 23) still in place but without any furniture. It made me wonder about time—the past and the future. It made me aware of where I was at the moment by making me see traces of a past life or hints of a future scene to come, however you looked at it. It was also really heart-warming to see such vibrant colored marks on a floor that is usually just brown and boring.

Okay, you still with me? So after seeing the Spike (Studio 23) on its own, I thought, “Wow, what a flashback! I should take the spikes from the floor to the wall”. I grabbed some heavy duty brown paper, placed it on the floor, grabbed whatever fit within the perimeter of the rectangle, and spiked it. I chose to spike six things because I wanted to stay with my rainbow palette that I’ve been working with for a while (‘cause that’s just how I roll). Each panel is 30 inches in length by approximately 45 inches in width. I chose to title each drawing sequentially by completion as well as include the furniture or props that were spiked, along with the same bold colored vinyl electrical tape.

Spike 1 (2 chairs, 1 tripod, 1 crate, 1 dress form, 1 video-game console)

Spike 2 (1 box, 1 magazine, 1 poster, 1 chair, 1 crate, 1 tripod)

Spike 3 (1 chair)

Spike 4 (1 crate, 1 book)

Spike 5 (1 chair, 1 shoebox, 1 sewing machine, 1 canvas, 1 box, 1 poster)

Stunning, right? Don’t you just want one or two framed under glass and hanging above your Versace sofa? I was really happy with the drawings and it’s definitely something I plan to keep working on. An idea I’m still working on is my interest in the sequential nature of my color palette, which already has its determined order (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple). If one knew my palette and understood that it always works in the same sequence, then perhaps these drawings suggest what furniture or prop was where at what time. WHAT? For example, Spike 3 (1 chair) is just one chair spiked in six different places. If I wanted to stress to the viewer that the chair moved from here to here to here to there, then I could say that all you have to do is go in rainbow colored order. Red is always first, orange always second, etc.

Okay, so if you’re still with me, the end is approaching—just a couple more images. So time passes and Studio 23 starts getting dirty, as it tends to get. The temperature in NYC also drops, so my heater has been on. Unfortunately, some furniture pieces were blocking the heat, so I had to move everything around. So what happens to the spikes? They get a little torn and worn all this time, with furniture moving, feet pounding, and dust collecting. My buddy, Nick, made a great point that spikes get stepped on all the time, get scratched and mangled, and really just forgotten. It’s so sad to think about! The bold colors still pop, but it is interesting that now, Spike (Studio 23) is an ephemeral installation.

Yay, thanks for making it this far! And last but not least, sometime yesterday Gus23: The Blog hit 10,000 views! Thanks to everyone who has been stopping by! I love you all!

Links Cited:
Wikipedia entry, Spike (stagecraft).