Scenic Painting at NY's Cobalt Studios
BY JENN GODDU
Carl Ulaszek doesn’t hesitate now to admit what was once one of his "secret fears." The technical director at University of Illinois at Chicago was always afraid he was "an inadequate painter."
This fear, coupled with his frustration teaching painting in his courses at UIC, inspired him to enroll recently in a three-week summer intensive program for scenic artists at Cobalt Studios in New York.
"I made a decision that I wanted to learn a little more about painting and improve my skills," he said. "It’s like professional development for me."
Ulaszek, who has worked at UIC for the past 14 years, also does set and lighting design for area companies such as Black Ensemble Theatre, Tellin’ Tales, Victory Gardens and Theatre at the Center.
It was while working on Miracle on 34th Street in Munster that Ulaszek first found out about Cobalt. Ann M. Davis was doing scenic design for the production. "When I saw this woman do these drops I was stunned. They were just wonderful," Ulaszek said. He asked Davis where he could learn to do such work and she immediately suggested Cobalt Studios, although she herself has not attended the program.
Cobalt Studios is a school for scenic artists founded by Rachel Keebler and Howard Jones in 1988. It is patterned after the guilds of Renaissance times combining classroom, workshop and living space. Students live in the Cobalt farmhouse and work at its studio on 20 acres of land in White Lake, New York, about two hours outside of New York City.
"It gives people an opportunity in a very short amount of time to develop a very good overview," said Lynn Seippel, Cobalt’s business development manager. "It explores all the different areas of being a scenic artist and what skill sets one has to have."
Along with the summer intensive program in scenic painting, Cobalt also offers a more advanced summer program and a two-year full-time program. The programs are always small, usually only eight people at a time are doing course work, so that the students have the room to spread out and work as they gain the skills needed to make a living as a scenic artist for theatre, ballet, opera, television and movies.
"Not only is it an intense amount of work but it is like being part of a residential theatre company on the production side for three weeks because it is a live-in program as well," Seippel said.
The courses are open to anyone with an interest in scenic artistry. Most often the students are people who are working in theatre, as a painter, scenic artist, set designer or technical director. Ulaszek’s classmates included university faculty, a high school art teacher, college students and set designers from off-off-Broadway.
"I don’t believe that there’s really any school of this quality and caliber, and a school that’s been doing this as long, that’s available," Seippel said. "The students really take a very intensive tour through all the facets of being a successful scenic artist."
Keebler and guest instructor Kim Williamson teach the summer scene painting course. Working 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for three weeks straight, Ulaszek learned to paint techniques, perspective, light and shadow, how to scale up images, how to lay them out and many other skills that go into the craft of scenic painting.
"There’s so much information you just realize how specialized this is and how professional these people (are)," he said. "If you really want to know about it, this is the place to get the information, because they just convey it in a very concise way and a very applicable way."
Ulaszek said he learned so much, his big fear now was whether he would retain it all. But in the meantime, he said, being at Cobalt had given him new ideas and a new confidence in his abilities.
"It’s a real hands on approach but it’s also tempered with real professional experience," Ulaszek said. "They’re filling it in for me very fast and very wonderfully."
To learn more about Cobalt Studios, visit www.fcc.net/cobaltstudios/about.html or call 845/583-7025. Carl Ulaszek is also happy to speak about the program. He can be reached at carlu@uic.edu.
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2001 College Yearbook