Ian Petroni
Process

How a project actually runs,
from a drawing to the street.

The same five steps whether it is a puppet for an opera, a creature for a lantern parade, or thirty people in a library who have never built anything.

  1. Somebody arrives with an idea

    Usually a drawing, sometimes just a description. It does not need to be good and it does not need to be buildable yet. Almost nothing arrives buildable.

  2. We talk about the situation it has to survive

    This is the step people skip and it is the one that decides everything. Where does it live? How does it get there? Who carries it, and for how far? What is the wind like, the ceiling height, the doorway, the number of performances? Functionality is not the opposite of the idea. It is what lets the idea exist outside your head.

  3. A design and assembly plan

    Before anything is cut: what it is made of, in what order it goes together, who does which part, and how it comes apart at the end. When the Museum’s Women’s Council brought me their design, this is the document we made first. It is also what keeps a five-week build from becoming a nine-week one.

  4. The build

    Five weeks in a tent is normal for a parade piece. Papier-mâché is slow, salvage takes longer to prepare than new material, and both of those are choices rather than compromises. The time is the argument.

  5. Install, perform, or parade

    And then, usually, take it apart. I try to be in the street as a participant on the day rather than standing at the side worrying, which took me years to learn.

Materials

I work in what other people threw out.

Found objects, salvage, recycled and upcycled material. Partly that is a position. I would rather make something handmade, organic and intentionally imperfect than something that looks like it came off a line. Partly it is just practical. Salvaged material is cheaper, it is already here, and it carries a history that new material has to fake.

It is also slower, and I want to be straightforward about that. Sorting, cleaning and testing reclaimed material takes time that buying a sheet of new plywood does not. That time is where the difference comes from.

If they just bought it in the store, it wouldn’t have the magic.

Ian Petroni · CMA Thinker, 2018
A large paper flower lantern glowing from the inside, its petals translucent against a dark background.
Paper, wire, and a light inside it.

What I need from you to start

Less than you think. A rough drawing or a description, the date it has to exist by, the place it has to exist in, and a realistic sense of who is available to help build it. If any of those are still unknown, say so. That is a normal way to start a conversation, and a much better one than a specification written to sound certain.

Start a project