Scenic Design Portfolio
Painting Churches
Okoboji Summer Theatre / 2022
Painting Churches follows a family returning to the cluttered rooms of a longtime home as an artist daughter tries to paint her aging parents while they prepare to move. Gretchen Ugalde's design supports that emotional unpacking with a space that begins dense with memory and gradually opens toward a more spare, revealing final image.
Renderings
Production Photos
Design Statement
ainting Churches is a story about a family with the surname of Church, including an artist's daughter who wants to paint a portrait of her aging parents. The daughter arrives to help her parents pack up the family home to downsize to a smaller cottage. With each item, they pack, memories are both conjured and unrecalled due to memory loss.
There is a lot of confrontation and trauma that the family unpacks to each other as they pack their home. It feels like the clutter in the main room is just as bad as the clutter in their hearts. As the family gets to know each other in a new and honest light, there become fewer and fewer items on stage. By the end, we are left with an empty room and a lonely artist's easel with the portrait.
