I moved on...

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ETC, ETC, ETC

I spent a day at the ETC headquarters in Middleton, WI. They have an awesome facility and work environment.


The assembly floor / warehouse is one very large open space. All ETC products are made in this space. All elements of ETC gear are manufactured in this facility except for the lenses and the metal castings for  the fixtures.

This picture shows the lens housing for Source Fours going through the paint booth.

This is the lobby. The employees eat lunch here. Each storefront houses offices.

This is inside the theater where they do training. There is an amazing rig hanging from the ceiling.

This picture of the main entrance does not do thy facility justice - it is huge.

Click below to see a short YouTube video on ETC.

Life Behind Art - Sorry no pictures

I usually only blog about art and technology. Often times you look at an artist and think their life revolves around the creation of their art - you forget they have lives as well. Part of my challenge of working in the Church technology world, is finding the balance of work, community, and family. Often times in the Church world these lines get blurred to the determent of many people. I said all that so I could give you a glimpse into what was my life Friday morning.

Since Simone started working part time (so we could put Jazz in the school that we felt would best benefit him) and Paris started another school across town, life has been CRAZY! Just when we feel we have a handle on it something comes along and disrupts it... 

This is one of those weeks, a day off for MLK threw the whole process into turmoil. Today was the pinnacle of the chaos. On Fridays, we leave the house at 7:20 to get Jazz and Simone to work and school by 7:30. Except we had not been to the grocery store so our children had nothing for lunch. Well that’s not the whole truth... we had dinner at Whole Foods the night before and failed to purchase anything for lunch. 

So, after dropping them off, Paris and I ran to Jewel to purchase 2 lunchables, 2 Red Bulls (for mommy because that is the kind of week it has been) and “something to chase them with” which ended up being Snapple raspberry ice tea. 

Paris was complaining about having to go the the bathroom but had admitted she only was saying that so she could get candy from the principal of Jazz’ school. So we dropped the supplies off and went on our merry way. 

Once we got across town Paris started FREAKING OUT that her stomach was hurting. I HATE having to take her into mens public restrooms, but she cannot pee in a random ally like Jazz can! Nothing with parking (something that plagues city life) was open so I had to drive a bit with her crying in the back seat. We found a Starbucks (clean restrooms) and that was done. Got some coffee and headed on our merry way. 

We arrived at her school 5 min early. Parent Volunteers help children out of the cars on the street along the school. We pulled up and were just hanging out there Paris had taken her seat belt off and had put her back pack on, all ready to get out of the car. 30 seconds before she was to get out of the car she said “Daddy don’t be mad at me” I said “Why?” she said “Don’t be mad at me. I think I pooped my pants”. I said “Turn around.” I then pulled up her coat and pulled her tights and panties away from her body which exposed... let’s just say it was FULL! 

I think I held it together, only future counseling sessions will expose some deep emotional scar that I inflicted today! I quickly pulled away from the curb, so not to have to explain to the volunteer why Paris could not get out of the car. Found a place to pull over so I could get her backpack off and get her seat belt back on. It was a painful experience to watch the expression on her face as she sat in her booster seat with a full panty for the 20 minute drive home. She was disgusted to say the least. I felt really bad but there was nothing to do. 

We made our way back home once back in the loft I had the unpleasant task of undressing her and showering her off... and I mean unpleasant. After finding her a new school uniform and a new pair of tights we were back on our merry way to school. That all happened while a little bit of chaos was going on at work I was on the phone having to arrange for people to come in at an unexpected time. I was totally spent after all of that the rest of the day I just felt like a zombi.

And what was the reason the school secretary wrote for her late? Personal.

Scribbles

I am always scribbling concepts for set designs on pads around me. Here are a couple of conceptual drawing and the sets they led to.

Let's end this thing!

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Merry Christmas from the Widney's

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The Warmth of the Season

Anthony Barlich of Barlich Photography photographed our Lessons & Carols service. Here are a couple of his shots from the evening. 


We spent the first part of the Christmas season in a purposefully cold stark setting. We were focusing on the simplicity of the event of Christmas. The theme was designed to contrast what the rest of the world does for Christmas. The last half of the month I wanted to create a lush warm environment but still maintain the non traditional aspect of our setting. Throughout the month there was no element that was traditionally Christmas decor.

The Red Candle

In the midst of building the Christmas set with all the candles, an artist friend of mine called and told me I needed one red candle on stage. This candle would represent the death of christ and the blood that was shed for all of humanity.

I ran by Michael's and grabbed the candle. We had the stand in storage. I placed six white candles around the red candle and took the blow torch to it all. I melted the red candle last so you got the red wax on top of everything else.

The candles sat center stage and a shot of them created the perfect backdrop for our lyrics during communion.

Lessons & Carols via Twitter

We did a service this year called Lessons & Carols an adaption of Nine Lessons & Carols an historic service format. We ended up with 800+ candles on stage. Here are some shots from Twitter of the night. I will post more soon with pictures of how we constructed the set.

CHRISTMAS.

Christmas was always simple.  

An inn with no room, a manger with a baby, a teenage girl in an unknown town, and some shepherds that celebrated the arrival of God on earth. Christmas was never intended to come along with the all of the flash and stress that now surrounds this holiday. It was intended to celebrate the incarnation and now has become more about consumerism and our western culture.  


So this year at Park we decided to go simple. 

No screens. 

Little Technology. 

Old Songs. 

The Birth Narrative in Luke 1 & 2 for four weeks.  

Simple not for effect, but because we believe that if we could remove the inevitable distractions that come our way this time of year and remember that the incarnation, God being made flesh and dwelling among us, is real that it will change our lives all over again.

This is how we do it.

Annual reports at a church are usually presented before an evening service or for 15 min during a service. The report is primarily centered around a Powerpoint presentation with graphs and lots of numbers. It is often presented by the administrative pastor who has very little, if any stage presence.

We wanted to take a different approach to educating our people on the financials of the church. Our goal was to provide a high level overview with enough numbers to satisfy those who want to know but with enough energy to still keep the rest of us engaged.

More of the same... in a fun way

This week we launched our Global Impact Week, our version of your typical missions Sunday. Tim Schraeder, our communication director, blogged about it here so I'll just let you read about it there.

As far as the set I turned the towers square for the first time so the projections were not distorted. I had designed these prayer stations that represented each of our 5 global initiatives. It was a great design that coordinated with the set. It was one of those ideas that looked great on paper and sucked when I built them. I tried several different versions of them before I gathered everything up and hauled it to the back stage storage. I hate that part of creativity!

Here are a couple of shots from the weekend.