Staff Spotlight: Mary Novodvorsky, Charge Artist

CTC: What is your role at CTC? 
Mary Novodvorsky: I am the Charge Artist, which literally means “the artist in charge”.   

CTC: What does your job involve?
Mary: My job involves coordinating with the designers, the Technical Director, and other department heads to get the scenery painted. I hire and supervise the scene shop painters, decide the processes that should be used, purchase the materials, and paint most of the scenery. The Charge Artist also needs a varied background in many different skills. I have painted both opaquely and in watercolor styles, sculpted, textured, draped and dyed fabric and rope, made faux finishes, and on occasion, used my sewing skills. 

CTC: What is your favorite thing about your job?
Mary: It’s fun to create very large works of art that go on stage, and it’s not the same work for every show. Each show is completely different. You’re not always building and painting a box set with a staircase over and over. Plus, what works for one show might be used again for another, but the process may be tweaked to create an entirely different look. There’s a lot of problem solving to figure out how to get the look that the designers want.  

CTC: What do you love most about CTC?
Mary: How friendly and collaborative everyone is.   

CTC: How can someone prepare for a career like yours?  
Mary: a) Learn to draw, and then keep learning to draw better. Drawing skills are the basis for many arts processes and these skills are the foundation that everything is built up from. You don’t paint or sculpt anything without first drawing it. If the drawing is bad, the rest of the piece will suffer.

b) Look at everything around you. Take pictures and keep a picture/source file. See what things really look like instead of what you assume they look like. What does rust look like on different types of metal? Hey, there’s a source picture for you to reference. Learn what makes things look the way they do. Good faux wood grain happens when you understand how a tree grows first. 

c) Learn how to work effectively in a shop situation. It can be a dangerous environment if you don’t know how to work safely. And you should always question how safe something is to work with.