Interview: Jackie Martinez

Jackie Martinez, a Theater Arts student here at UCSC, has had much experience around the area of set design. She has created sets for many of the productions and performances put on by the Theater Arts department as well as for other theater art troupes on campus. When asked how this passion for designing sets came about she said that “I guess it started when I was young. My mother said that my passion for art can be traced back to when I was in kindergarten. I don’t remember this, but my mom says that in my classroom there were 3 different tables where kids were playing at. At one of the tables in the room there was a bunch of boys playing a board game, another table had kids playing with toys and blocks, and the last table had arts and crafts and kids were coloring and painting pictures with their hands. My mom says that every time she took me to school, the minute she puts me down I would run straight to the arts and crafts table and color and paint for hours. I think from then on, I realized this was it, this is what I love to do. The power to be able to create anything you want for one moment, to make worlds come alive with colors and paint… I can’t explain what that feels like”. This love for color and drawing soon developed into a love for hip hop and other urban art forms like graffiti as a growing teen, and eventually leads her down the path of art as a college student. But one would assume she would then be an Art major right? When asked how she came to design for the Theater Arts department she quickly said “I was excited about pursuing art in college when I graduated, but during my first year here I realized I did not like creating art in the confines of a classroom. It was to dead, emotionless. I felt cramped and could not focus creatively. At the time I loved to paint back drops in my room, just something to do. One day a theater art student saw my back drops hanging in my room and asked if I painted. He then asked if I can paint a backdrop for his set in his play for one of his classes. I fell in love with the whole process of creating and painting the backdrop that as soon as I finished the painting, I dropped the art major and enrolled to become a theater art student” After that first backdrop, Jackie strived to work on the sets of shows that deal with current issues that young adults, like herself, can relate to. “Nothing against Shakespeare, I mean I know he was a genius and all, but that stuff is old school. I want to create something young, fresh, alive, and vibrant with colors and life. Shit that I could go and see and watch and be like, Wow I feel that, I can relate and actually say I really feel that because it touches close to home, and not because I’ve been studying it for years and teachers say it’s good”. It wasn’t until she joined Rainbow Theater, the only multicultural theater troupe in the UC system that puts on various plays created by students that deals with different cultural issues pertaining to young adults, and created her first set that she discovered a feeling that was all too familiar to the feeling she felt drawing pictures in her kindergarten class. “The feeling I get when I start painting and drawing is hard to describe. I just get so lost in my art that I sometimes don’t even notice hours pass by. When I draw, I’m in my own world and I stop only when I feel like stopping, that and because I’m probably hungry as hell” This positive attitude helped her network and develop flourishing relationships with student directors around campus. Her list of works range from backdrops and miniature stage models to full on sets for actual productions shown on campus.
The first picture is a stage model she created for one of her studio design classes. “I created this design for one of my projects in class. It’s influenced by the play Carmen by George Bizet, specifically act IV. I wanted a stage design that would capture Spain and its love for bullfighting so the bull ring was necessary to capture that”. The next picture is another model created for her studio design class and this time “this design was on a play by Shakespeare, what a surprise (laughs) but I did have a lot of fun creating this piece. The play is Twelfth Night and the setting is in Croatia in the 1600s; you can’t tell by the picture but the shelf with the flowers on it is actually an interchangeable piece that spins and turns into a mini water sink.That way it instantly changed to fit other scenes in the play”. But her designs and idea doesn’t stop at just miniature models but extend to actual sets used in shows throughout her stay here. The last picture is a set design used in a production at the Barn Theater, a theater totally run by and directed by students.
“This was a special piece because I created this set for a good friend of mine that was directing a play for Barnstorm. The play was called Untitled Until and it took a lot of time and effort, and many sleepless nights with my friend, to finally come up with a design that would express the message and set the tone of the whole play”. When I asked her how it felt to see something you created yourself, something you can call yours she simply replied, “relief and ecstatic at the same time. There’s nothing in the world like it, I feel proud and anxious to create again. I’m hooked”. The look in her eyes as she finished speaking just gleamed with emotion and passion and that look of hunger that is rarely seen in young designers today. “My dream is to one day get a chance to design for a production on Broadway in New York. That’s where theater started in my opinion, and when I went to visit in the summer the atmosphere, the culture, and the people just infected me and my mind was blown. And besides, what girl doesn’t have a dream of one day being on Broadway; I just want to create a set for it”. And from what I’ve seen as a long time fan of her work over the years, and from her passion and love she puts forth in anything she creates, she is well on her way.