Dylan

I'm gonna try posting about my theater carpentry as well as personal projects here. She/They

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I've been teaching myself hand tool woodworking in an effort to really improve my skills. So I made this keepsake box for a dear friend. I visited her last weekend and had the best time ever.

I didn't use any power tools or fasteners. Just wood, glue, finish. It is made out of white oak and walnut for the little carved handle in the tray part. Cutting dovetails is challenging but very fun. It's nice to reconnect with the parts of making stuff that I really enjoy and finding new things to get excited about.

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The most recent show we put up at work. It was a lot of work despite being intended as a simpler set. Turns out when you want to paint dark walls white it takes 3-4 coats to look right. Not looking forward to painting everything back when the show closes 😅

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Thought this was cute! obsessed with yours @stillforests always love to see hyunjin :) I am an avid android enjoyer but I do covet the aesthetic options apple has.

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Found a very patient cormorant today! Very helpful with its poses too :)

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Reflections on the river

I went downtown this morning because I had taken pictures of these bridges the other day but the sd card corrupted halfway through downloading them. I think these ones turned out better anyway :)

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I get to walk this path to get to the grocery store. Portland isn't always great to live in but it sure is pretty.

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I'm still learning how to use my camera and I was trying to take some photos at night, they all turned out funky and blurry like this. It's not what I was going for but does have a vibe™ to it for sure.

Does anyone know why this was happening? Is it just because it was dark? I still basically only use the auto settings on this thing.

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Downtown Portland is so pretty!

I finally got a new charger for my camera battery so I think I'll start uploading some photos

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This is the most recent show I worked on, called Paradise Blue. I didn't get as many progress pictures as I would like. it was a challenge in many ways. I feel like I had the yips or something this show and kept messing stuff up and making careless mistakes. I also injured my back halfway through the build. Luckily the master carpenter I was working with has been doing this for longer than I've been alive, and we made it work in the end. It ended up being my favorite show I've done at this theater, from the design to the performances everything just worked together really well. Also I included a picture of a prop I made, it's a slice of sweet potato pie

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This was a gift I made for my dad's 50th birthday last year. 50 is a big one and he's been playing guitar since he was a teenager so I decided to go all out the only way I know how. I got the rough idea from a few guitar stands I saw online but I had to figure out the angles and dimensions based on an actual guitar to make sure I had enough wood.

The wood was given to me for free because it had a lot of voids and cracks in it the first picture is after I ripped the walnut board I had into a few even pieces, and I had to glue and clamp them a few times to address all the cracks and get some solid lengths to work with.

I was determined to make this last a long time so I decided to build it using dowel through pins on every joint, this allows for a much stronger joint than screws or nails with the added benefit of looking much nicer.

The finishing process was long but very rewarding, as you smooth out the surface more and more details from the grain begin to show through. and a benefit to using really cracked and gnarled wood is that the grain often forms beautiful patterns that you wouldn't get in a "better" cut of wood. It just requires a bit more effort. I'm absolutely obsessed with the wood, a huge long living lifeform is born, grows, and dies. With the incidental beauty of its grain standing as a testament to the life that it lived, to the things that it experienced, and as a reminder that it was alive. That is what I love so much about fine woodworking, creating something that solves a problem, while highlighting the beauty found within the material while finding a balance between function and form. I don't get to do much fine carpentry but I'm always glad to give it a go.

I finished it with beeswax as from what I can tell that won't harm the varnish on the guitars, but I did end up putting gray foam tubes on the long sections of dowel that come into contact with the body of the guitar.

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This was my Thesis project Adri's room

It was an immersive theater piece about a trans girl and her experience growing up, coming out, and transitioning in an imperfect world.

The participants explored the room to find journal entries that had been torn out of Adri's journal she had been keeping since she was young, and still called Adrian. The story is told through those entries, audio, and video cues.

The mirror in the room was my favorite effect. it was made with mirrored window tint. so when the lights are on it looks like a mostly normal window, but when the lights dim and a projector is aimed at the back side of it it turns into a sort of ghostly display showing the moment Adri told her sister she was trans and then her first time wearing a dress her sister gave her. As if the powerful emotions imprinted on the mirror.

I am a huge fan of environmental story telling and really believe that you can learn so much about someone by the stuff they keep around.

The whole project was inspired by the video game Gone Home and I highly recommend you play through that if you haven't.

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This was a cool but stressful set to build, I was the technical director for this show and it was my first time being in charge of a build this complicated. I made the large crown molding piece out of insulation foam and construction cardboard. The show was called Nora, I didn't get to see it unfortunately because of some scheduling conflicts. I've worked with this designer a couple of times and she always does a great job.

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I had to learn how to paint things to look like tarnished metal for this set, and make this funky rolling triangle bench thing. It definitely pushed my skills forward

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One of my favorite pieces I've worked on since moving up to Portland. I made a lot of stuff for this show so I'll definitely post more pictures