Scenic Fabrication & Public Art
For several parade seasons, I worked with The Parade Guys in San Francisco, helping build large-scale parade floats and public art installations. My work ranged from scenic painting and surface finishing to fiberglass repair, decorative fabrication, restoration, and preparing artwork to withstand weather and the demands of the parade route.
Working on moving sculptures taught me lessons I still carry into every creative project. A parade audience experiences each float for only 15–20 seconds, so every decision has to communicate quickly and clearly. Strong silhouettes, bold color, and visual hierarchy matter. When deadlines get tight, you learn what truly serves the story—and what can be cut. That balance between craftsmanship, spectacle, and storytelling continues to shape the way I approach film, installation, and experiential design.
Working with Rick Herns Productions in Redwood City gave me the opportunity to help build immersive environments from the ground up. I fabricated, sculpted, repaired, painted, and finished large-scale props and themed installations, then often returned for installation or live events where I interacted with guests as a performer and activity leader. Seeing a project evolve from raw materials to a finished experience, and finally watching audiences explore and enjoy it, taught me that great environments are built with equal parts craftsmanship, collaboration, and storytelling. That experience eventually led to my promotion from scenic painter and fabricator to directing a production team that created Google’s Take Your Kids to Work Day interactive video series.
Working with Awesome Theatre in San Francisco, I helped bring productions to life through props, costumes, and practical special effects. I sourced and assembled costume elements, fabricated custom props, and created effects designed specifically for the needs of each production.
The work ranged from environmental and character details to delightfully gruesome practical effects, including custom severed-finger props created for TERROR-RAMA III: Dead the Whole Time. Working within the immediacy and constraints of live theatre meant finding inventive, practical solutions that could read clearly from the audience while standing up to repeated performances.
My work with Awesome Theatre combined fabrication, visual storytelling, resourceful sourcing, and hands-on theatrical problem solving, helping transform the written world of each show into something tangible onstage.
San Francisco City Hall Centennial
For San Francisco City Hall’s Centennial celebration, I helped bring the city’s iconic architecture into the festivities through a wearable replica of City Hall, created for performer Vesper Synd as part of the 100 Years of San Francisco Music celebration.
The piece became more than a costume. Inside City Hall’s rotunda, it turned into an impromptu interactive attraction, with visitors and tourists lining up to pose for photographs with it. Watching people stop, gather, interact, and create their own memories around the piece was a wonderful example of what I love about world building: creating something visually striking that invites the audience to become part of the experience.
The project combined fabrication, costume construction, architectural interpretation, public spectacle, and participatory storytelling, transforming a familiar San Francisco landmark into something guests could encounter face-to-face.
