Scenic Fabrication & Public Art

My world-building work spans scenic fabrication, prop-making, practical effects, public art, costumes, and immersive environments. I enjoy the entire process of transforming an idea into something tangible: interpreting a concept, choosing materials, building and painting, solving unexpected problems, installing the finished work, and ultimately seeing an audience interact with it.

The Parade Guys

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, transportation, and the demands of the parade route.

Parade fabrication is both an artistic and logistical challenge. Large pieces have to be visually impactful while remaining durable, safe, movable, and ready for installation in dynamic public environments. Working as part of a large production team taught me how to coordinate moving parts, adapt when plans change, solve fabrication problems with the materials available, and keep the larger visual concept intact under tight deadlines.

A parade audience may experience each float for only 15–20 seconds, so every design decision has to communicate quickly and clearly. Strong silhouettes, bold color, scale, 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, logistics, and storytelling continues to shape the way I approach film, installation, and experiential design.

Rick Herns Productions

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, translating concepts into tactile spaces designed to establish mood, narrative, and a sense of place.

The work required both artistic vision and hands-on problem solving. Materials, texture, color, scale, and small environmental details all contribute to whether a fabricated world feels convincing. I learned to look at an environment as a complete experience while still paying attention to the individual pieces that make it work.

I often returned for installation or live events, where I interacted with guests as a performer and activity leader. That gave me the unusual opportunity to follow projects from raw materials through fabrication and installation all the way to the audience experience. Seeing guests explore, play with, photograph, and respond to something we had built reinforced my interest in creating environments that invite participation rather than simply being observed.

My work there eventually led to a promotion from scenic painter and fabricator to directing a production team that created Google’s Take Your Kids to Work Day interactive video series, bringing the same collaborative leadership and visual problem-solving skills into media production.

Awesome Theatre

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. Effects for live performance have to do more than look convincing: they need to be stage-ready, durable, safe for performers, repeatable, and readable from the audience.

Live theatre also rewards resourcefulness. Budgets, materials, rehearsal schedules, and technical limitations rarely allow for a single perfect solution, so I became comfortable adapting ideas, sourcing unconventional materials, and finding practical ways to achieve an effect without losing what makes it fun or visually memorable.

My work with Awesome Theatre combined fabrication, costume sourcing and assembly, practical effects, visual storytelling, 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 project combined fabrication, costume construction, architectural interpretation, public spectacle, and participatory storytelling. Translating a massive and instantly recognizable building into a wearable piece meant identifying the architectural details and silhouette that would communicate ‘City Hall’ immediately, then adapting them to the scale, materials, and practical requirements of a performer.

Once inside City Hall’s rotunda, the piece became more than a costume. It turned into an impromptu interactive attraction, with visitors and tourists lining up to pose for photographs with it. People stopped, gathered, interacted, and created their own memories around the work.

That spontaneous response captures what I love most about world building. Whether I’m constructing a parade float, theatrical prop, costume, set piece, or immersive environment, I’m interested in creating something visually strong enough to draw people in and detailed enough to reward their attention. The best environments don’t simply establish atmosphere; they give audiences permission to explore, interact, play, and become part of the story.

World-Building Skills

Across parade work, installations, theatre, practical effects, and public art, I’ve developed a broad set of skills for taking creative ideas from concept to finished experience. I’m a hands-on maker comfortable working with tools and materials, but I also enjoy the collaborative and conceptual side of production: understanding the larger vision, communicating with a team, solving problems as they arise, and knowing which details will have the greatest impact on an audience.

My experience includes scenic fabrication, prop-making, set and environmental design, sculpting, scenic painting, surface finishing, fiberglass repair, restoration, costume sourcing and assembly, practical special effects, installation, and live-event execution. I’m accustomed to working within real-world constraints of budget, materials, safety, transportation, deadlines, and repeated use.

Most importantly, everything I build serves the story and the experience. I’m interested in the relationship between the big picture and the tiny details: the silhouette that communicates from across a street, the texture that makes an environment feel lived-in, the practical effect that sells a moment onstage, or the unexpected detail that makes someone stop and take a closer look.