Curriculum Vitae  

 

 

Instead of  the expected career in the world of classical music and going to a music conservatory, I chose to go to art school in Tilburg, Holland.

I found work as a scenic artist at the Opera in Enschede, with a designer who I met there, I went to Berlin as her assistant, this was in 1985 - going to exciting West Berlin ! First production was Rocky Horror Picture show in the Berliner Kammerspiele. Followed by a few more production there. I worked with her in the Salzburger Opera House, Berliner Theater des Westens ( Porgy and Bess - Gershwin, Land des Lächelns - Lehar) and I shoveled as a scenic artist in various scene shops. 

For several production designed and directed by Robert Wilson I painted big back drops and show curtains based on his complex charcoal drawings in Berlin and Amsterdam. 

A year in Rotterdam : I worked for Het Rotterdams Theater as a scenic artist and went to evening school at the Royal Academy for the Arts in The Hague  and got my post academic degree for scenography - cum laude. For Nederlands Dans Theater II I designed the set for a new production, choreographed by Pieter de Ruiter and went with Nederlands Dans Theater III  on a North America tour. 

In Berlin I found a steady base in the Hebbel theater as a technician. For several dance companies based in Berlin ( Toléda Dance company, Dance Berlin ) and others, I designed sets and costumes. This started a long term collaboration with artist and light designer Fred Pommerehn. Together we worked for a decade with Marguerite Donlon, director and choreographer of the ballet company based in the big classic Saarbrücker Landes Theater. A theater with all the stage machinery to create highly aesthetic and very successful productions.  We designed many new productions and of course we did the classical repertoire productions as well, of which several went on international tours. 

I moved to New York, were I joined the scenic artist union and worked on many films including a couple by Spike Lee and I created  the art work for the film 200 cigarettes  staged in an artist loft.  

For the Museum of Natural History in Chicago, I was part of a team made up of sonic thinkers / designers, software developers and engineers,

I created the spatial design for this (for that time very innovative) interactive musical instrument exhibition. That brought us to design and built an interactive dance floor for an entrepreneur based in Chicago. This resulted in two dance club settings. 

In California, I found this Telephone Repeater Station where I still live, I taught at California Institute of the Arts in the theatre school and in the Integrated Media department. Through the I.M. program I got to know and work with M.I.T. molecular biologist /artist Joe Davis, this projects involved a ornithopter, which got it’s maiden flight at Mojave airport. Notable was also robotic artist Zaven Paré for whom we built here at The Compound a two-headed mechanical dog. Still traveling back and forth to Europe for work with the Donlon Dance Company, my own work grew slowly but steadily. The final collaboration with Donlon was an Oratorio  by Beethoven, performed in a large factory building. I added a non dancing character : a falconer. Standing on stage with the hawk on her fist at times …oh so foreboding. The story of the Oratorio is about the last days of Jesus on the Mount Olive and ends as he is captured. At that final moment a long screech of the hawk echoed throughout  the building. Awesome and in the same time chilling. This particular collaboration after a very successful decade ended as wel, with a different kind of screech.

But, it bought me a Spanish style church in Mojave, which is currently rented out to an aeronautical engineer. 

In 2015, because my collection of work grew now faster, I renovated the Tower Building located on the premises right here and this, this...

became The Museum in the Tower Building.