Today’s Necessary Evil Chore was dealing with the piles of felt in the closet. Felt gets used for lots of different parts of puppets–mouths, tongues, ears–as well as hinges or to pad a handle. Now we can find the correct colors much more easily! Hooray!
Our supply of felt, all mixed up.
All organized in rainbow order!
Genna gets the megaphone for this next edition of Favorite Tools. She says:
The hot glue gun has been and continues to be my favorite tool…for now. Once upon a time, I sewed all my puppets and while the end result was a more durable puppet, there have been more times of late when puppet building needs to be fast and puppets only need to hold up for a short run. Plus when working in foam (ah…foam, I love thee), it’s really the very best adhesive for holding odd geometries of cut foam together forever. And I cannot deny that the hot glue gun has saved the day for a quick fix before a show.
The way people feel about duck tape (i.e. it can solve any problem) is the way I feel about the glue gun when working in fabric and foam. However, I readily admit that my penchant for this crafter’s tool is a naive one. The problem with this love affair is obvious. Glue as well as duct tape is not a miracle medium. Hot glue fails under heat, and it doesn’t stick to everything. It makes a mess and you go to sleep with strings of it hanging about your ankles. But I keep believing in it because in ordinary circumstances and for foam building, it’s my hero.
You know all those little chores around the house that are necessary, but also time-consuming and messy? I’m thinking of the kind of things that you try to avoid, even as you know you have to get them done sometime, like cleaning out drains. Puppeteers have those kinds of chores too, but they can occasionally take on a slightly macabre tone, like ‘sort eyeballs by size’ or ‘take apart moving hands’.
Keeping an artistic space neat is always a challenge, so in an attempt to motivate myself, I’m going to occasionally post here about a necessary evil chore. Then, hopefully, I will manage to actually accomplish said chore. Todays chore is untangling thread. Doesn’t it look nice and neat, all lined up in the box and bobbin case?
Thread, all tangled and mixed up.
Thread, all nice and neat!
The first half of the story of The Amazing and Marvelous Cabinets of Kismet (or Kismet for short) is about a community of puppets that are made of found objects. As we start our building process here, we’ve collected boxes and bags of various odd objects or pieces of objects, from thrift stores as well as our own closets. We also depend on SCRAP DC, a local ‘thrift store for artists and crafters’ which has many interesting materials for us to use. Here are a few photos of our objects, ready to inspire new characters.
I was taught to use a sewing machine by my grandmother when I was 13, but didn’t use my skills regularly until college, when I spent four years working in the costume shop as a stitcher. We didn’t always make costumes by hand, but there were always alterations to be done and I learned how to cut patterns, pin fabric and put together the pieces. After finishing school, I went without an electric machine for almost six years. I finally got around to buying my own machine last winter and it was one of the best purchases I ever made. It makes sewing the backdrops (and everything else, like costumes and puppet bodies) SO much faster! Now if I could just get a little better at filling bobbins….life would be perfect.
We were excited to share a remount of our first show The Malachite Palace at the Chinn Regional Library in Woodbridge VA a few weeks ago. In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, we brought this bilingual fairy tale based on a picture book by Alma Flor Ada to a group of kids ages about 4-13. Below you can see a few pictures of the show and the kids exploring the puppets afterwards.
Genna operating the marionettes of the children and the shadows of the princess and adults inside the malachite palace.
Our audience looking more closely at the sets and puppets. Sarah is showing two kids how to hold and operate the queen shadow puppet.
We were thrilled to perform at the inaugural FIGMENT DC a few weeks ago at The Yards park in Southeast DC. Here are some pictures of our setup and audience members enjoying our show!
This is the first in a series of posts on our favorite puppet building tools. As someone who isn’t very good at serious building, I love this compass saw because it is so easy to use. 10 inches long and simple to work with, it is perfect for small jobs and can handle large ones if you have a little patience. I use the compass saw for cutting wood, dowels and PVC pipe. This is definitely one of my favorite puppet building tools!
The children at Chevy Chase Library in Maryland had a great time at our performance of Anansi’s Appetite a few weeks ago. In these photos, you can see Turtle and Anansi from the story Anansi Goes Fishing as well as Anansi and Granny Annika from the story Anansi and the Dancing Granny. Huge thanks to the Friends of the Library for inviting us to Family Fun Day!
Actually, it’s an old stage, built in 2011 for our first show The Malachite Palace. We were quite proud that we were able to build it out of recycled wood! However, the pieces were long and bulky and the side wings somewhat flimsy. So now we are rebuilding. And here it is! Doesn’t it look pretty?
Genna also found a bag that is intended for boat sails, but works just as well for all the wood and PVC pieces of this stage. Hooray for not having to make ten different trips carrying pieces into the theater for shows! Here she is modeling:
Wit's End Puppets 