2017 Puppet Lobby Photos

Posted on November 30, 2017 by ccbooks

We’ve had a great time this year getting our Puppet Lobby series started. These events bring puppeteers together for conversations about different aspects of puppetry, from methods for building body puppets, to the challenges of writing a puppet show. Here are a few photos from our first two events.

Michele Valeri and Ingrid Crepeau of Dinorock Productions show off their dinosaur body puppet.

Ingrid’s baby dinosaur meets Patches, a character created by Kuroji Patrick.

Hamida Khatri explains her process of creating a stop-motion animated short film.

Kuroji Patrick and Hamida Khatri show off their stop-motion puppets.

Preview: Puppet Lobby #2

Posted on October 31, 2017 by ccbooks

By Cecilia Cackley

Our next Puppet Lobby event is scheduled for Monday, November 6 at 7pm. We hope you’ll join us at the Brookland Artspace Lofts for some great conversation and community-building. We are excited to start talking about a subject our company has been interested in from the beginning–stop-motion animation using puppets.

Stop-motion animation has a long history of artists using puppets very effectively from Jan Svankmajer to the Brothers Quay. At the Puppet Lobby we will hear from local artists Hamida Khatri and Noa Heyne about their experiences studying stop-motion at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).

Art installation by Hamida Khatri

Hamida Khatri works in a variety of mediums — from figurative drawings, to photography, to sculptural puppets, to animation. As well as an artist, she is also a writer, curator, arts educator, community activist, and a creative arts therapist. We were lucky enough to screen her stop-motion short film, Mom & Me as part of our Puppet SlamNation back in September.

Sculpture by Noa Heyne.

Noa Heyne holds an MFA in Sculpture from MICA and has also studied in New York, Italy and Jerusalem. Her work has been exhibited in Baltimore, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and she will have an installation in CulturalDC’s Space4 mobile gallery next year.

In addition to a presentation on stop-motion animation, this Puppet Lobby will also include a conversation between Cecilia Cackley and Nina Budabin McQuown, both Wit’s End Puppets company members, about the challenges of writing plays specifically for puppets. Whether you are a puppeteer yourself or an eager audience member, the Puppet Lobby will give you a chance to ask questions, meet artists and find out more about this infinitely varied art form. See you on November 6th!

February Grab Bag

Posted on March 4, 2015 by ccbooks

A roundup of links, articles and generally cool stuff we highlighted on Twitter in February.

See item #4

1. Here’s a super cool stop-motion video with cardboard puppets.

2. This exhibit at the Hirshhorn museum includes a piece involving light and cast shadows.

3. The official trailer for Song of the Sea, an animated film based on the selkie legend which we incorporated into Malevolent Creatures.

4. The picture book The Rabbits, written by John Marsden and illustrated by our favorite Shuan Tan has been turned into an opera.

5. This show came to the Artisphere in Arlington and we were sad to miss it! Hopefully we can see this company another time.

January Grab Bag

Posted on January 29, 2015 by ccbooks

A round-up of videos, links and articles that we highlighted on Twitter this month.

# 2 Why don’t I live in Chicago?

1. These gorgeous shadow puppet photos, based on various mythologies that explain the Northern Lights, were created for Kinfolk magazine.

2. We have fantastic museums here in DC, but I’ve been wishing I could get to Chicago to see this exhibit of puppets at the Art Institute of Chicago.

3. Puppets can illustrate real world issues as well as ancient mythologies. One of our Twitter followers called our attention to this article about Ebola, illustrated with two-dimensional puppets.

4. The creator of the puppets for that article is Jons Mellgren, a director, illustrator and writer from Sweden. Here are photos of one of his stop-motion puppet films, called ‘Paperworld.’

5. Sometimes I think that I must have read every single article and interview with illustrator Shaun Tan. I don’t think I’ve shared this one though, which is a conversation with Neil Gaiman, one of my other favorite writers. It is quite delightful and I hope you enjoy it!

November Grab Bag

Posted on November 29, 2013 by ccbooks

Moses from THE TABLE. Photo by Lorna Palmer and Xue Qian

1. Last week, Pat and I got to see a fantastic show by Blind Summit Theatre from England. It was called The Table and consisted of three puppeteers and one puppet telling the story of Moses, along with many clever asides. Really amazing work and the company website includes a set of tips for puppeteers which are also great.

2. A fascinating article about marionettes built by Ralph Kipniss, an artist I had never heard of before. While the Kickstarter campaign mentioned in the article did not reach its goal, there are still people working to raise the money to find a home for this amazing collection and preserve it for future generations. You can find out more and help out by donating here.

3. We made lots of puppets for Cabinets of Kismet out of various kinds of paper, but one kind we didn’t really use was tissues. Maybe if we had seen this video by Yuki Ariga, we would have:

4. Last but not least, yesterday was Thanksgiving, which of course means the puppets that had the biggest audience were the Macy’s Parade balloons. Did you know that Tony Sarg, who first came up with the idea for those books, was a puppeteer? Here is a VERY short clip of him with one of his graceful marionettes. The balloons aren’t nearly so graceful, but they are a lot bigger.

Wit's End Puppets

Tag Archives: stop motion animation