I will be volunteering in San Antonio, TX and as I mentioned  before – if you get to the house keep your eye out for me – I may be volunteering right beside you. EMHE has so much real estate in my heart. I can’t believe that the final episode of the series has aired.  The team that drove it across the finish line are some of the most talented and dedicated in the business.  Ty, Paulie, Tracy, Michael, and Paige  and the whole team of incredible designers guided us through the renovations every Sunday night.  But there is the massive team of unsung heroes that made it all possible with the help of thousands of volunteers- the design producers and art world!  To this day I have never met a harder working group of people in my life.  The hours they stayed up and the tasks they tackled will shock and awe me all my days.  From living room to kitchen, pirates room to beauty salon, from alien/Lion King room to stunt room no theme was immune. Big D, Justin, Brandon, Kevin M., Sean, Todd, Brian, Jim B., John B., Di, Emily, Steve, Clip, Sinead, Karin, Maggie, Margaret, Michele, Liz, Jeanette, Marissa, Nicole, Chris, Jacque, Courtney, Vanessa, Brian, Kim, Jinnie, Melissa, Ann, Susan, Sass, Pat, Mike, Ben, Brad, Chris R., Paul Z., Dave H., Alicia, Matt, Chad, Hallie, Dessie, Sarah, Les, Rich, Jen, Stacey, Annie, Aaron, Melissa F., Dee and Shelby, Lisa, Shelly, Eddie, Michael, Dana, Brandon, Joe, Brenda, Lisa, Kate, Dawn, Terri, Phyllis, Cindy, Kevin, Mike D., Curtis, Roxane, Nellie, Scott, Kit, Mary, Lisa, and the list would go on for 100 blogs…..

Thank you for teaching me so much more about teamwork then I ever should have learned on a TV show. Stay tuned for my notes on the San Antonio build.

Now I am contemplating one more for the road with EMHE.  A good friend and fellow artist, Sarah Lynn Brown, asked if I would consider doing one more episode with the show.  Yes, Sarah, I am considering it.  EMHE was an incredible show to work on.  To this day I use the skills I perfected in houses on the road both professionally and personally.  The message of EMHE is simple – care for others.

If you need a refresher in this simple lesson or you wish to volunteer on a television show that has significantly affected more lives than any other you have two chances left. Tennessee and Texas.  They are shooting in early January.  It is worth the road trip, the baby sitter, the time off your paid job.  It is worth the experience, and hey, if you get there ask for me.  I may be volunteering right beside you!

If you are reading this you may wonder how to get involved with the show before it ends.  You can    www.joinextreme.com

In grammar school my hands served me well in art lessons but not so well in english and math.  Apparently drumming on ones desk or counting with ones fingers was a bad idea in a classroom.  Pointing at people was also frowned on.  Climbing the monkey bars, throwing tanbark, drawing in chalk on the sidewalk were all big parts of my daily curriculum.  Writing on paper was a challenge because I was intense and held my pencil like I was protecting it from kidnappers.  I wrote so hard that often I dug holes in the page when taking a test.  My erasers were worn to nubs daily as my perfectionism reared its ugly head in first grade.  When I painted, drew or sculpted all the intensity would melt away during the process.  It was my pure peace while it was happening but when I finished I always viewed my work with the most critical eye.  The process was wonderful the self reflection not so wonderful.  I wanted to be able to create what was in my head but my motor skills, life experiences and understanding were still being built.  If I could go back I would tell myself to lighten up and let it come with time(as I do with my three children).

I was not a reader in grammar school.  It was kind of boring to sit still that long and my hands could only drag along the words.  So I watched the other kids and timed my page turning to them while I fantasized about finding kittens on the way home from school or defending myself if zombies overtook the classroom. I remember going to a reading class away from my homeroom in first grade.  There were only about five of us in the group and we were given candy every time we read aloud.  I really believed we were the advanced ones.  Many years later my husband and a friend, both teachers at the time, told me I had been in remedial reading.  In reading, writing and arithmetic I was challenged but with my hands I was learning quickly.

Eventually I gained focus for school studies and after college graduation, I found a job for my hands.  I was hired to build natural history museum exhibits at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.  Finally I had found the perfect place to work!  The job was to include fabricating prehistoric dioramas of plants and animals for the Life Through Time exhibit.  My first day was truly one of the biggest moments of my life.  I walked into the studio and there were about five woman working in a space that reminded me of biology lab.  At each station they had magnifying lights, tools, clay and printed reference material.  One was sculpting trilobites, one was casting fossils from silicone molds, one was sculpting the texture on a prehistoric plant trunk.  It was fabulous.  The department I was assigned to was preparing, painting and assembling cypress tree branches but my supervisor was late that day.  I continued through the shop and found a man in a welding mask, full leather apron and large leather gloves creating a waterfall of sparks with a grinding tool.  He told me he was forging armatures for giant ammonite fossils.  Ammonites are prehistoric creatures that lived in shells like that of a nautilus or snail.  Another man was in a room that sounded like a wind tunnel.  It looked like he was heading on a space walk or going into a quarantine chamber for some rare contagious disease. He was dressed in a full white suit, gloves, booties and a hood but I could see his mustache through the shield on his face.  He was spray painting plant material that hung on a clothes line.  Finally I found what looked like my department but it was deserted.  There were sawhorses with large tree branches on them, piles of metal rod, a rolling cart and some power tools.  I had no idea what to do and my supervisor had still not arrived.  I didn’t want to look like a slacker so I set to examining all the items in my area.  That took about five minutes.  I was beginning to feel self conscious because I wanted to get to work but didn’t want to do the wrong thing.  I spent another few minutes looking at the surroundings like I was in search of something.  That way if someone was watching me I would still look busy.  Then I reviewed the items in my area as if perhaps I missed something the first time.  Still no supervisor came.  I decided to go back to the ladies in the sculpting room to see if they needed any help.  You would think I had asked if could french kiss their boyfriends (this taught me to empathize with new employees or volunteers -I try very hard to make people feel valuable and welcome).  I realized it would be  best to steer clear of that area for a while.  Then I went back to the guy making sparks but he already had an assistant.  She smiled at me when I asked if they needed help but said they were okay.  I started to sweat a bit because I was afraid that someone would see me wandering aimlessly about the shop trying to look busy while doing absolutely nothing.  I searched desperately for something to do.  A broom or a posted message to read, anything.  Finally I spotted a sign to the tool cage.  I walked briskly to it to give the impression of urgency to anyone watching.  Inside the cage I began reviewing and memorizing the tools.  I really had no idea what many of them did but saw some that we had at home or I had used in college.  To burn more minutes I picked up each one so that anyone stopping by would think I had a very important task at hand.  After about 20 minutes I had looked at every tool, read every label two or three times, and counted the shelves.  At that point I felt like I was in reading class at grammar school.  Nothing to do and no one to pace page turning off of.  I just started to wring my hands.  I looked at them while I did it and hoped it would help alleviate the anxiety of feeling useless.  Just then I heard a voice say, “I know how you feel”.  I looked up startled and horrified that I had been caught doing nothing on my first day of the greatest job ever.  A girl about my age with short brunette hair, jeans, boots and a cowboy shirt stood there smiling at me.  She reminded me of the pin up pictures of Betty Page with her blunt short bangs and dark eye liner.  I remembered her as the one assisting the guy making all the sparks.  She told me she understood how I felt because it reminded her of her first day at the studio.  She said she was just helping with the forging until the supervisor came to start us on the tree branches.  From that day forward she was one of my closest friends.  Together we painted, assembled and installed all the branches on the cypress trees for the exhibit and had a blast doing it.

At the wrap party for Piestewa family home EM:HE season 2 finale

While working on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition I met some of the most talented producers in the business.  One of my favorite was Denise Cramsey, a tall young woman with warm brown eyes and an infectious smile.  She had been Executive Producer on Trading Spaces but I knew right away she had a special connection with our show.    At the end of season 2 we had all worked so hard to complete the home for Lori Piestewa’s family on the 24th episode.  It was an exhausting and emotional finish and we were all grateful to have had so many good memories.  Tom Forman gave a speech about our cast and the struggles we had endured.  I really felt connected to my “family” on the road but never as much as when Denise spoke.  With her deep generous laugh she described those struggles in detail.  She had been in the trenches with us.  I had watched her painting a fireplace in New Orleans at 3am during one of our most challenging episodes.  Not at all in the job description of Executive Producer. At the time I didn’t think she had noticed what my role was but then she mentioned me in her thanks.  I was dumbstruck and so touched.  We went on to work on three more seasons together.  We shared personal stories, hopes and dreams.  We both knew that the show was so much larger than what could be recorded on film.  The power to rally hundreds and sometimes thousands of people together for a common good was immense and Denise understood that from day one.  When our crew stumbled she picked us up and held us on her shoulders ’til we overcame the obstacles.  After I left EMHE I worked with Denise again on True Beauty and School Pride.  When I think about the heart of EMHE I think about Denise. She continued to produce shows that could make a real difference in our world.  On November 23, 2010 Denise passed away suddenly.  Like so many families she had helped her own family was left in the tide of her tragic passing.  I am forever grateful to have known her and each Thanksgiving I will give thanks for her.

Oompa Loompa, Willy Wonka, Charlie Bucket and Veruca Salt

So every year at one member of my family asks to be something the mega costume shops have not yet thought of.  And every following year I find that character’s costume available for a fraction of the money, blood,  sweat, and tears that I put into my version the year before.  I have scabbed together costumes for a pea in the pod, a glow in the dark skeleton, a ring master, Inspector Clouseau, Indiana Jones, a circus elephant, a tiny clown, a ghost that looks like a 5 year old’s drawing, a geisha witch, a snow princess, a flying monkey, a snow man, Captain Kirk, Gilligan and the Skipper, Spaceman Spiff and Stupendous Man, Walt Disney, Willy Wonka, Charlie Bucket, Veruca Salt, an oompa loompa,
Cleopatra, Robert Palmer chick, Elton John, and the list goes on.  This blog entry is more about image than writing so check out the images of costumes through the years.  Happy Halloween!

I had not ventured into the city very often; I had been warned in no uncertain terms by my suburban parents to never go south of Market Street but my curiosity overruled their fears for their precious college graduate. My dad had a point.  I had seen homeless people before but these men looked like piles of debris; it was like walking through the Thriller video.

Joe was right; the building looked like all the rest.  As I pushed open the frosted glass door, I prayed that his directions were accurate.  I half-expected to blunder into an opium den,  biker roadhouse, or white slavery auction block.

Instead, there was a small empty lobby that faced a reception window.  It reminded me of a pawn shop.  It was safe to assume they probably had a lot of unsolicited visitors.  There was a woman in her mid thirties with what can only be described as a dark brown mullet.  She peered over her thrift store glasses and asked pleasantly if she could help me. I felt welcome. And then I felt relieved that I felt welcome. And then I knew I was going to get this job.

I told her about my brother in-law.  I told her that I was an artist.  Her response was pat and practiced.  She said they were not hiring and thanked me for coming by.

I paused, and gathered myself.  I may have been fresh out of college but I did not come down to the south of Market against my father’s wishes and pass dozens of homeless men who were generously offering me half of the Big Mac they had dragged out of a garbage can and were about to make me their common law refrigerator box wife to get a quick blow off from the gate keeper. I patiently explained that I had a Bachelor’s degree in studio art, that I had an emphasis in biology in my Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art and that my grandfather had done research for the Academy of Sciences in zoology so, it was totally obvious to an unbiased observer that I was genetically engineered for this job. She politely declined.

The situation appeared desperate, but not to me; I had a hole card.  Who would say no to free.  She did not know that my parents would support me.  I broke out the big gun, the coup de grace the one thing she could not reject, only an idiot says no to free labor.  I sat back and waited for the smile – and the job.

Three minutes later I found myself back in the front seat of my beat up old Datsun 510 wagon complete with peeling fake wood paneling, with a slip of paper upon which was written the number for the volunteer coordinator at the California Academy of Sciences…. which I probably could have gotten from the phone book on the counter of my parents’ Marin County kitchen.   I had officially been brushed off.

While traveling with my EMHE family I met so many incredible people.  I highly recommend going out and volunteering for a cause you are passionate about.  The work is rewarding and the connections to people who share your passion are priceless.  On a build in Lincoln, Nebraska I met a wonderful man who shared his family story with me.  He gave me his blessing to share it on my blog.

I was working on an Ice Hockey room for Preston Sharp and Paul Dimeo.  There was some faux finishing to do and a ton of carpentry.  The guys had brought in some incredible local talent to help them trick out the walls with tons of small blocks of wood cut from 2″ x 4″s .  This meant someone had to makes hundreds (maybe 1000) cuts and apply the wood one piece at a time to the wall.  It was a very tedious job and I decided to watch a bit of the process. The gentleman in charge was working steadily with a smile on his face.  He stood by the saw chopping the pieces and resting them in an ever growing pile.  Some blocks were already up and the effect was incredible.  I could not believe he could repeat the process over and over and still have a warm smile for me.  I introduced myself and he told me his name was Matt. We got to chatting and I thanked him for his great attitude and dedication to such a task.  He said he was happy to do it but only wished his son, Matthew, could come help.  I asked how old Matthew was and wondered why he didn’t call him to come out.  He said his son absolutely loved Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and would have loved to come to set but he had leukemia and was awaiting a much needed transplant from someone with a rare blood type and they were having trouble finding a donor.  I asked him why he wasn’t at home with Matthew.  Matthew, Matt told me, was the reason he had come to volunteer on the house.  Matthew really believed in what we were doing for families across the country and if he couldn’t help out he would send his highly skilled carpenter father.

Their story struck me so deeply.   A father doing for his son who could not come.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Matt had said what a fan Matthew was of the show so I racked my brain to think of something to connect Matthew directly to the build.  I asked Matt to stand by and I raced out of the room.  This also gave me a chance to hide the tears that were in danger of falling down my face.  I just wanted to bring Matt joy while he worked, not any more sadness.  I grabbed an EMHE t-shirt (every volunteer got one), a pen, and Ty’s photo and headed for Ty and the designers.  I got everyone’s autograph but Preston’s.  I was so excited to have something to send home to Matthew from our crew.  I delivered the shirt and photo to Matt but told him I was sending over Preston to sign the shirt in person.  We exchanged emails so Matt could keep me posted on Matthew’s condition.

Later in the day I caught up with Preston.  He was signing the shirt for Matthew while Matt told his story.  Preston heard the blood type and said he was a match!  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I gave him a huge hug.  He said they were awaiting a call from the doctor but he had given Matt his information in case he could be the donor.

Within a day or two a donor was found and Matthew had the procedure. Matt kept me posted while it was underway and sadly Matthew’s body rejected it right away and he slipped into a coma.  Six days later I received a devastating email.  Matthew had passed away.  As I read Matt’s words I could feel his love for his son pouring out.  He asked me to thank the cast and crew of EMHE for making the last two weeks of Matthew’s life special.  He was laid to rest with the signed t-shirt as he had requested this.  As a parent myself I can’t think (or write) of this story without awe and tears.  Matt and his family are true heroes from my time on the road.

On the 10th anniversary of a very sad day I wish to share the little story (unedited and in its raw form as it was created in the weeks that followed 9-11-01) I wrote for the beacons of hope that are our children.  Click on the title above and it will download in your computer.

It was my intention to display the story with a sculpture I thought of.  My very good friend, Paul Zank, is a genius and made my dream a reality with Eternal Glory Testing the flag

Eternal Glory

Where Did All the Flags Come From? was written and illustrated in a dummy book form in September of 2001.

The title was prompted by my 5 year old son and the children in my 18 month old’s school whose only understanding of the weeks that followed 9-11-01 was that the world was covered with American flags.
At 4am on September 11, 2001 I sat on my sofa watching television as my contractions got stronger.  I knew my baby was on her way but I decided to hold off the hospital as long as possible.  At 4:30 am Pacific time I turned off the television.  A smart move as I was able to sleep for a couple hours before my labor increased.  When I awoke at 7 am Pacific time I checked on my son and daughter and called the doctor.  When my mother in-law arrived to pick them up and my husband brought my bag to the door she took him aside and instructed him not to turn on the radio or television.  She was worried it would all be too much for us as we were focused on the arriving baby.
Larkspur Alison arrived safe and sound in Newport Beach , Ca. In our world she was an incredible blessing and to our family and friends she was a little life raft of hope.  Our joy for her was massive and it sheltered us from much of the devastation taking place on the East Coast. It was her gift that prompted me to write a story 5 days after delivering her so she and her siblings could learn about the tragedy of 9-11 from me. Several years later she and I were talking about her birthday.  She said she knew about the buildings falling down.  When I asked her how she said she had read my story.  I hadn’t even realized it.  I got my wish – I told her first in what I hope is a gentle loving way about such a sad historic event in the United States .

Bar Rescue episode 1 Angels to Racks after

If you tune in to Bar Rescue on Spike TV you will see host, Jon Taffer and his co-host, Nicole Taffer, take over bars that are in tough shape and work to revive them both financially and physically.  I have had a wonderful time as Production Designer on this new show.  Working with a fantastic art team and wonderful production team was very satisfying as we crossed the country and worked countless hours to relaunch some ailing businesses. With many reality shows that involve design and renovation there is only so much time to introduce the characters, find out the problems to fix, work on those problems, test the solutions and release the characters into their new systems.  With so much story to tell and limited time it sometimes cuts my and my teams favorite part short – the before and after process of the makeover.

Our first episode to air was a bar called Angels in Corona, California.  We set out to take a dark somewhat neglected space and inject some light and style into the space.

Bar Rescue episode 1 Angels to Racks after

Bar Rescue episode 1 Angels before