Did Things Get Weird Yet?

In a most basic sense for me personally, puppets can be anything. And as a maker a performer this is so exciting and freeing. They can be as simple as a caterpillar, they can be an old man, they can represent sadness, or the sea. If done well anything can be ‘brought to life’ and when it all clicks its genuinely magic to find yourself or your audience invested and believing in something as simple as perhaps a tablecloth is alive.

It’s hard to break the stereotypes that especially the UK and US have of puppetry, that it’s just avenue Q or punch and judy (or it’s a thing for children). If you look closely however puppets are everywhere, in adverts, in films, in theatre. They can do things that people can’t and they’re amazing story tellers. 

They can tell stories with no words (for anyone who needs or prefers visual only story telling this is brilliant) They can bring a shy child out of their shell as they can breath, sit and listen and not have all the emotional weight of a human. They’ve been used in schools, in prisons, with people with dementia, to help with integration for refugees…the list goes on.

To say i’ve been inactive is a total understatement, so sorry! There are many many reasons, one being my graphics tablet finally died and I don’t have the funds to replace it and another being that i’ve been super busy.

I created my first public puppet show! And amazingly performed it in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. ‘Plague’ was an exploration of the great Plague of London, the whole show appearing from inside an old wooden box. My art has really switched the last year towards puppetry and if you want to follow any performances that I make I now have a facebook page,  https://www.facebook.com/Messageinabottletheatre I also have a (still slightly inactive) tumblr that stores photos and info about my puppet making for my uni assessments, @progressingpuppets  

ARE YOU TAKEN SERIOUSLY?

Firstly i’m sorry i’ve been so damn quiet, uni has really really snowed me under D: BUT On the topic of uni i’ve just started a project where i’m going to work performativly with peoples responses to a personal prompt. For this to work I not only need lots of responses but I also need responses from people of all areas of society.

The prompt is centered around being taken seriously. Any response to this is helpful!

I can be anything, a one line response, a drawing, a recording, a short story...anything. If you choose to help you can Message me, send me an Ask, Reblog this, Tag me, anything that gets through to me via tumblr. 

I’m working on ideas of how to reward people who help me and i’ll be posting up the final work probably in video form in about a month so you can see how your response has been included. Please share if you can and thank you so so so much in advance if you help or share!

But if anyone is interested I have a tumblr for my uni that I started the other day. It’s mainly just for storing my photos and journalling on my days for future assessments buuuut it’s always useful to have some extra eyes :) 

HOT NEWS!

There are currently two packs of stickers for sale in my etsy! One with hats and one with no hats!

Shark inspired Character Design for an Art Trade with the amazing krallentier