2015 marks my third year teaching puppet making at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. I love teaching at the Folk School because it gives me an opportunity to share the knowledge and techniques that I have been using and developing as a puppet builder with people who may have never tried to create a puppet character. This year, 6 exceedingly talented students, covering a broad age range, created 6 very dynamic characters. Over the course of 5 days, my class worked very hard learning the fundamentals of foam rubber and fleece puppet construction. Gradually, as the week went on, these wonderful characters began to emerge.
"Susie Mae" in progress by Mary Jo Campbell
Lacey working on "Aunt Flo."
Zachary and his dinosaur expert!
Pam working on Carey the hockey player.
Jeff working on "Bad Ass"
My alien creation!
Details mean lots of hand stitching.
He didn't get the message about running with scissors.
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Jan Davidson with son, Sam, who's inside this lovely parade puppet for the May Day Parade
Nannette Davidson with her parade puppet creation.
Looking forward to teaching this class again in 2016! For more information, visit: https://www.folkschool.org/
Here's a custom monster I just finished for my friend, Zachary. He gave me some ideas of the monster he wanted, including an eyebrow mechanism! He was a lot of fun to work on!
Here's a look inside the head. The eyebrow mech is a simple one: a piece of welding rod that curves around each eye and loops inside the head to form a lever. When pushed up, the lids go down. When pushed down, the lids move up. This is controlled by the middle finger of the performers' hand.
To create the gnarly texture for the monsters' fur, I used an old Muppet trick of boiling the fur fabric first.
These eyes are made from large sized Easter eggs!
Whips of feathers were added into the fur to give some added texture.
Every now and then I get a request to build portrait puppets for a client. Recently, I was contacted by a fellow named Joel in California who wanted to have two portrait puppets constructed for he and his girlfriend. His plan is to use these puppets to pop "the big question" to her over Valentine's Day! Of course, we were happy to fill his order. Joel is thrilled with them (we're pretty proud of them, too!) and wish him the best of luck next week! Hope these do the trick and she says "YES!" Fingers crossed, Joel!
For a puppeteer, there are a lot of
fears that can keep you up nights. For instance, there are physical
calamities which might prevent the required dexterity of movement,
thus ending or limiting one's performance capabilities. Then there
are acts of Mother Nature that can have tragic effects: fire (think
of the Scarecrow from “The Wizard of Oz”), flooding and so on.
Then there are human actions. And this is where my story begins.
Several years ago, while selling
memberships at an Atlanta arts organization, I started incorporating
one of my stock puppet characters, Norbert, as part of my pitch. I
discovered a puppet could lure the attention of a child to my sales
table with the parents soon to follow. Norbert was really the bait to
hook a sale. It worked beautifully. In the weeks and months that
followed, through the conversations he had with children and parents,
Norbert's character began to emerge. He soon became my go-to puppet
when called upon to interact with the public and even found his way
into a role in my Christmas show, “Santa's Missing Mail.” He
also was the star puppet on a music video collaboration with
singer/songwriter, Kelly McFarling when they performed a duet of “I
Want to Dance With Somebody.”
It was no surprise that when I decided to present All Hands Productions in the exhibitors gallery
of the Atlanta Parent Magazine Block Party at Mercer University that
Norbert was along with me to attract the attention of attendees. I printed out coloring sheets and certificates with discounted
performances, all of which Norbert hawked in his usually silly,
puppety fashion. We manned the table from 7:30am until 3pm when I had
to dash off to play banjo at a wedding in Kirkwood, on the edge of
Little Five Points in Atlanta. Kirkwood is what some might call still
a “developing” neighborhood. There are parts where you can
absolutely feel safe and others where you don't want to leave
anything in your car. As it turned out, I shouldn't have left
Norbert in my car.
I left the wedding around 10pm and
headed up the street and around the corner on College Ave where my
car and several others were parked in a business' parking lot
designated for our use during the wedding. I opened my back hatch,
placed my banjo inside and then got in the drivers side. A quick look
to the right showed that the widow on the passenger side door had
been busted out. I got out and walked around and found my denim
jacket (covered with Muppet patches) lying on the ground. I looked in
the back of the van where all my sound equipment was still in place
from where I had packed it from a gig the previous Thursday.
Untouched. The glove compartment was hanging wide open, where, I
guess, they had searched for a hand gun. I didn't notice anything
right off that was missing.
NORBERT! THEY HAD STOLEN NORBERT!
My heart sank to my shoes as I dialed
911. Some folks were milling about across the street and I walked
over to ask if they had seen anything. The thieves had not only
broken into my van, but also into an SUV parked next to mine. The
officer arrived and I knew I'd have to go into the details of what
had been stolen. You look perfectly normal when you have electronics
or CDs stolen, but how was I going to tell this guy that my purple,
shaggy, Muppet-y looking puppet was stolen. The officer was quite
understanding, however, and asked “Was it a string puppet
or...like..a Jeff Dunham..” He instantly had my respect. The
officer gave me a copy of the report paperwork and I proceeded to
worry and fret through the whole ride home and on into the night.
Puppeteers know there are two dominant
types of attitudes towards puppets in our field: those who have a
respect for the puppet and handle them carefully as tools of
expression. Then there are those who are “precious” about them;
who treat them as living, breathing entities. I liked to think of
myself leaning more towards the first, but after this experience, I
found that I was really closer to the latter.
When friends, attempting to be
consoling, said that I could simply make a new puppet and perhaps
improve on the construction and, despite the inconvenience, end up
with a much better puppet. This is something I've done as the puppet
has worn out. The stolen puppet was actually the 3rd
Norbert I've constructed. But, to my thinking, this go-round, I
would simply be creating an impostor. Though I might have a puppet
that looked just like Norbert, I could make him sound just like
Norbert, it wouldn't be Norbert because I would know that he was out
there in limbo somewhere, perhaps in somebody's home, or on eBay, or
in a landfill. This episode was now part of this character's story.
“Precious,” indeed.
So, I did the only thing I could think
to do: I made a poster:
The next morning I played a banjo gig
at Big Tex's Cantina in Decatur with John Mickelson, with whom I'd
played with the night before at the wedding. After the gig, I told
him I was going to drive around and see if I could find
him in any of the dumpsters. John said he had to go back to the
wedding venue and pick up some equipment and would also give a look.
I hoped that I would peek in and catch a glimpse of
purple, shaggy fur. But despite how much I searched, I turned up
empty handed.
Then my phone rang.
It was John.
“I found Norbert.”
We drove to the parking lot, the scene
of the crime. Behind the parking lot, separating the business from a
residence was a privacy fence and a thin strip of wooded thicket
area. A thicket area just wide enough for a couple of people to hide
in while rummaging through their loot. And that is where Norbert was
found. The thief/thieves must have decided they couldn't use a purple
puppet and just left him there. So, the most Norbert suffered was
being exposed to the elements overnight.
Reunited. It was hard not to be
overcome with emotion. I already knew that puppets can be deeply
personal extensions of our own personality. This really brought that
all home to me.
