Paper, paper and more paper! When we created the workshop production of Kismet back in February, Lisi Stoessel made this lovely and graceful group of jellyfish to play with Kismet:

Fast-forward to December and we’ve moved away from specific sea creatures. Paper world is becoming more abstract and we’re trying to invent creatures that have unique shapes rather than recognizable organisms like the jellyfish. Here, you can see my worktable as I’m playing around with paper scraps donated by a printing company.

I’ve been experimenting with these paper strips, building loops and curlicues into string puppets that hang in clusters similar to the jellyfish. I’m still working through the possibilities (and playing with adding strings to ‘arms’ for some of the larger ones) but here are a few of my experiments that you can see. I’m calling them the Loopys. What do you think?

As the name might suggest, our show Cabinets of Kismet takes place in a world built of cabinets. So when we started talking about the set, there was one store that we knew would have pretty much everything we needed and that is Community Forklift.

Community Forklift is a nonprofit thrift store for home improvement supplies and architectural salvage. Located inside the Beltway near Hyattsville, it has doors and windows, cabinets, hardware, wood and lighting fixtures and so much more. They accept donations Tuesday through Saturday and have a truck to do pick ups if you can’t make it there yourself. For anyone in the midst of a renovation, we recommend taking a look at what they have. Prices are 30-90% cheaper than big box stores and purchasing secondhand also benefits the environment. We’re looking forward to sifting through these recycled treasures again as we continue to build Kismet!

Remember when you were a kid and grown-ups didn’t let you use knives? Remember how hard it was to cut thick cardboard with those little-kid scissors with the rounded points? I’m so grateful we are grown-ups now (well, sort of) and we can use these instead:

For a really long time, my cutting mats looked like this:

I resisted purchasing anything fancier, reasoning that a piece of cardboard did the job perfectly well. And yes, it is fine for quick cuts. But as we discovered when working on the first workshop of Kismet, cutting large amounts of foam core requires a more consistent cutting surface. So now we have this:

And it is wonderful.

One of my (many) obsessions is children’s picture books, and I’ve been enjoying the various articles posted over at The Horn Book Magazine’s website recently in celebration of Picture Book Month. I had to laugh when I read some short pieces first published nearly fifteen years ago, by artists discussing their favorite medium for illustrating picture books.

Chris Raschka titles his piece ‘My Next Medium‘ and declares “My favorite medium, my ideal medium, is the one I haven’t used yet.” Oh how well I know that feeling. People often ask me about my favorite kind of puppet. Marionette? Hand and rod? Shadow or table-top? And like Raschka, I’m always tempted to say “Whichever one I haven’t tried yet.”  Raschka goes on to say “Or maybe it’s the one I’m contemplating using, toying with using, in my next book Lordy! I think to myself, Lordy!, in my next book, I’m going to CUT LOOSE! In my next book. With my next medium.” There is endless magic in the possibilities of the future.

I often feel like I don’t have a very sophisticated process as a puppet builder. I have been working for the past week on brainstorming object puppets for the first half of Cabinets of Kismet and it mostly consists of me picking pieces up and turning the over and trying to imagine them coming to life. So many of our previous shows have featured humans and animals that I find I have to work hard to overcome some automatic assumptions. For instance, I keep having to persuade my brain that not every puppet has to have a face or two arms or two legs. These are object creatures and they are unique in their world.

A mouth made of a zipper?

I like the shape but I think it needs color.

This is the first in a series of posts about the various and often unexpected places we find materials to make our puppets. Enjoy!

A recent trip to New York City took me to Brooklyn, where I discovered a gold mine of objects, ready to be recycled into puppets. Film Biz Recycling is located west of Prospect Park, in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn.

Film Biz Recycling is a non-profit organization that diverts set materials from films to local charities. It also operates a prop shop and creative reuse center, which is where I spent most of an afternoon looking through all of their fun items. Along with furniture and large times which are for sale and for rent, there are shelves of small props such as telephones and typewriters, clocks and suitcases.

At the back of the store is a long wall filled with boxes, each with a neat label. “Thanksgiving in a box,” “Restaurant in a box” “Beauty Salon in a box” are just some of the  ones offered, and they are filled with all kinds of small items, which you can buy for just one or two dollars. I found old kitchen tools, hair curlers, and wooden spools, which will hopefully turn up in some of the object puppets we are creating for Kismet. If you ever find yourself with an afternoon to kill in Brooklyn, stop by Film Biz Recycling to find something unique for your home or maybe your next theater project!