I’ve been behind lately in communicating with the world outside of TV… being on the road for nearly 7 months on back-to-back shows, I’m thankful to have work in a climate where I usually feel like I’m straddling a fault line. Masterchef Season Two, Bar Rescue, and Home Takeover with Simon and Tomas is coming out this week… never would I have imagined 7 years ago that I would have three shows on the air that I had worked on at the same time. This is huge for me… and I’m so grateful to work with some fantastic, talented people. Thanks to my respective Art Department teams and your influence that has led me to this point; I think of all of you when things are going horrifyingly wrong and what I have seen you all do, in a diplomatic and respectable way – to tame the crazy. I’ve learned from the best and on my current show definitely walking a fine line every day and really using all the information on how to get what I need for my department and facilitate the design whims of our fantastic talent.
That said, I miss my friends — I have been relying on random, intermittent text messaging, often illegal and while driving– and Facebook to keep up with everyone and that’s probably not going to stop any time soon! My own mother is sending me letters from Ohio every day to keep me in touch with the REAL reality. When I was home redecorating her place, I left her with a box of pre-addressed, stamped envelopes. She’s out of envelopes already after four weeks; I usually have one or two envelopes with her wavering shorthand and a little message inside the flap, “call me.”
Or on her more creative days, something like, “need granola”, “crabs still alive” — in reference to her five hermit crabs, the smallest of which often disappear under the gravel, for weeks — she still loves the room I designed for her and that means the world. I think of her tucked away under the nubbly, soft green throw blanket with her moose pillow in the wintertime, under hanging lanterns and the diffuse glow of her new, verdine, 70′s style geometric curtains and white CNC window screen and Everwhere, her stuffed lobster—naptime!
My favorite part of the room was pretty simple — I painted the drop ceiling tiles in her favorite shades of grape green ( Glidden) and coral pink, and echoed the colors with stripes that run around the perimeter of the room, adding movement to an otherwise bleak environment. It’s the little things! Another of my favorite additions to her room was a fun, white metal milk pitcher, full of enough GIANT pipe cleaners for her to share with everyone that now comes by to see the “hummingbird room”. Textures are so important for people with disabilities — imagine being stuck in a body that doesn’t work, when your brain is still functioning the same as always… how frustrating! Pipe cleaners are great to make that re-connection and encourage the residents with motor dysfunction to make artwork again… to construct… to make shapes, animals, flowers. It’s so fun to see the nurses pop in just to say “hello” and look at the mural, and I know it gives Mom something to be proud of and show off — it’s all hers.
