Puppet Pie

Happy New Year!

2012-01-03T09:43:00.000-08:00

From the time I re-opened the shop mid-August, up until now has been awesome! I'm so thankful for all of the support of all kinds I've received from everyone. Friends, strangers, and family have all been cheering me on, and that's so incredibly appreciated.

I've got a few New Year's Resolutions to go over, and this is probably one of the first years that I've been serious about them, which means it all may last a week and a half, and they may not go into effect until mid-June. I'll list them here (they don't all have to do with Puppet Pie).

1. Get a bit healthier. I slack. I totally slack. I don't exercise beyond...well, anything, and that should probably change. I bought some jeans that had a "tummy panel" in them. I decided maybe I should return them for the ones that lift my tuchus up a bit. Unfortunately they didn't have any left when I went to exchange them (good to know they're in high demand), so I figured I'd have to do it all the old fashioned way. That being said, I hope to ride my bike more (yay Phoenix weather!), and maybe do a sit-up or two (tummy panel be damned!). I should also probably cut back on the soda and Spam.

2. I want to try to clean up after myself right away. My son and I were cleaning his room & I discovered that one of his science project went awry-- in that it spilled all over his bookshelf--and from the looks of it, it happened a long time ago (whee!). I sat scrubbing chunks of yellow...something... off of the darn thing and thought "hey now, this boy could be doing something useful, too!" I set him up scrubbing some..."gook" off of his wall near his bed (gotta wipe it somewhere!). It's also been there awhile. So with various cleaning supplies in hand, we were off to scrub. It took us each probably about 45 minutes. I commented about how long it was taking and he replied, "There's a year-an-hour rule. If you leave something gooey up for a year, it will take you an hour to clean it." My 8-year-old has wisdom. In my work-space, I tend to just go-go-go with projects, and then clean up when I realize I have no work-space left, and it takes much longer to clean. Much like the Mayan calendar, I hope for this to end in 2012.

3. Time management. I think a little Ritalin-type substance could help out with this, but let's just say I don't currently have a prescription for Adderall... I think a full-on schedule is in order. Monday: Making

Tuesday: Making, packaging, post office

Wednesday: Photographing & listing

Thursday: listing and making, and maybe a little blog posting

Friday: Packaging & post office

4. More hand puppets. I miss making them. Specifically I want to make some excellent ones. I know I can do it, I just rarely dedicate the time necessary to pull it off. I'll do a few and see how they do in the Etsy shop. I need a few more wow pieces, that's fo' shizzle.

5. Long-distance Craftiness. I wish to do a craft show far away from my house. One that requires a road trip with a friend or two.

6. Write more here. Yes. That.

That's about all I can think of for now. We'll see how I'm doing in 5 days!

Om nom nom

2011-10-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

I had the neat experience of setting up as a vendor at the first ever Maker Faire here in Phoenix. In 2008 I participated in the San Mateo Maker Faire & had a super fun time doing it. But as Phoenix usually goes, this was more intimate &...sweatier.

Lots of puppets found new homes, which means I'll be adding lots of new puppets to my shop soon! (I came home & made 36 more!) Before I went, I resolved to make a few puppets that were incredibly rad, (instead of focusing on "what can people afford to spend right now & I'll spend my time accordingly") & I think it was a good decision. I made a crocodile that I so totally want to keep. Then I made an owl & a fox, because I've succumbed to being trendy. Somehow or other it led down the path of "they're all predators...they need prey!" & thus the "Food Chain Friends" series was born.

Keep your eye out for them, & let me know if you think 2-puppet sets would be appealing. Downside: they're elaborate puppets, so they cost a little bit more than the average one. A set could be pricey. Upside: They'll be together! Forever!...unless the person who buys them gives one away.

Also, there's a poll on the facebook fanpage if you want respond to it. It's just one question. Let me just say the business side of running a business is totally all businessy & stuff.

101 and counting!

2011-09-08T19:33:00.001-07:00

So in less than 30 days, I've added 97 new puppets to my etsy shop, and have made 24 more for local shops. I'm working on a project for a local theater company (pictured above) & I made myself a new banner and profile picture on Etsy. I'm going to go ahead & give myself a little pat on the back. *Jazz Hands!*

Together Again

2011-08-24T14:03:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce that not only did I win the Handmade Olympics (& have meant to post that all year long), but also, after 3 (maybe 4) years, I'm back to building puppets full-time!

So somewhere between March and now, I fell into making inchworm rod puppets. Thankfully they're soft and adorable. You can't get hurt on adorable. Well, you can, but those are less serious muscle-injuries.

So hopefully I'll remember to post more here, now that I don't have a pesky day job weighing me down.

You can find them in my Etsy shop, and if you're in Phoenix, starting next week you can find them at local boutique MADE art boutique, on the southwest corner of Roosevelt and 5th Street in an oasis of cultural loveliness. And after you've visited MADE, go next door to Jobot & order a crepe. For serious, they're amazing.

I'm really excited to be onto this next chapter of Puppet Pie. I have shipping tubes! TUBES! do you know how fun it is to get a tube in the mail? I know that x70. If only they had arrived in a giant tube.

Upcoming Puppetry events:

Puppet Slam in Phoenix on September 2nd & 3rd (call 602 262 2050 for tickets)

Pirate Party at the Great AZ Puppet Theater at 2pm on Sept. 11th (Guild meeting to follow)

MAYBE the Sunnyslope artwalk on Saturday, October 8th from 5-9pm

Maker Faire Phoenix October 15th! I'll either be presenting or vending. We'll see!

Plug any of those things into your google machine & you'll get all kinds of details. It'll be fun!

-Stacey

Happy Pi Day, 2011!

2011-03-14T20:15:00.001-07:00

Hey guys!

Happy Pi Day! I almost missed it (whew).

I apologize for not posting about the fate of the handmade olympics. I was actually super-duper sick during the whole thing. I had about 5 days of being well & then I was (am) super-duper sick again. (My immune system is on vacation). Anyway, I'm starting to climb the health hill again, and I'll be back to my old "not sick 70% of the year" self in no time.

Serious thanks to everyone who has been patient with me.

Alright then, go out & have some pie to celebrate the few hours of Pi Day we have left!

A race to the finish!

2011-02-23T11:50:00.001-08:00

It's been a race that's captured the heart's of the world (if by the world you mean me), and now there are only a few hours left to vote! It only takes about 30 seconds (honestly) & it's oh so easy! I'm only a few votes behind 1st place right now & I have a real honest-to-goodness chance at winning! (Which would be totally awesome because I really want to be an olympic gold medalist!)

Thanks to everyone (friends, family, fans) for putting up with my constant bombardment of "vote for me vote for me" on the facebook & the twitter (and the in-person, too). You guys are awesome to tweet, retweet, repost, share & everything. I love feeling so supported!

Alright then, get out & vote for my Dragon Finger Puppet! Remember you can vote from your mobile device, too!

Shooting for Gold!

2011-02-15T08:14:00.001-08:00

So a few crafty people I know were holding/sponsoring something called The Handmade Olympics. It's over on the swanky blogger bloggity blog blog, rikarakstudio and the prizes look snappy!

I didn't enter something myself because I didn't know what to enter, so I just decided to watch on the sidelines. But lo' and behold, I get a message saying that one of my puppets has been, not only nominated, but also chosen to be one of the final 7 to be voted on! Voted on by YOU dear reader. Voted on by you.

So here's my dearest and humblestest requestestest: Please vote for Digby the Honknose Clownbat finger puppet! His picture is at the all-the-way-bottom and you'll find the voting box just underneath him (he's listed last). I'm shooting for Gold, but I'll be happy with whatever prize I actually win (even if that means it's just lots and lots of votes)!

Thanks guys!

Puppets Are for Grown Ups

2011-01-31T22:18:00.000-08:00

I've been doing puppet shows for grown-ups (otherwise known as Puppet Slams) since 2002. Yes, yes, the phrase, "grown-ups" has a slightly juvenile sound to it (likely because if you're saying "grown-ups" you either hang out with small children a lot, or you are one), but let's face it...if I said "Puppets Are for Adults," your minds would race down the gutter farther than a cartoon fedora in a Disney short.

That doesn't mean Puppet Slams have all of the wholesome goodness that a Disney short would (holy lemon balls, no!), but usually you'll find artists with enough sense that you won't see 45 minutes of puppet porn. Usually. Honestly I don't know what you will see, but I know at our Slams here in Phoenix, you'll laugh, you'll guffaw, & you'll chuckle. Maybe less guffawing than laughing or chuckling... but your personal boundaries for what you feel is appropriate may be pushed. In a good way. You may take offense at some things. Some things may offend you with intention. Should you go? Yes. Are you sad that you don't live in Phoenix (other than for the magnificent winter weather)? You don't have to be!

www.PupppetSlam.com is a super snappy website that delivers all kinds of fantastical news about Puppet Slams held all over the darn place! It's so exciting that I felt that it deserved two sentences in a row with exclamation marks. Do you see how awesome it is?? (Now TWO question marks? All caps?? What has this post turned into? A giant vat of amazing!? Why I do believe you're right!) ....... Run by IBEX Puppetry, the Puppet Slam Network is like the cartoon network, only more awesome, not on cable tv, and it will make your Chia pet's hair grow better than that time you gave it a mixture of beer & tabasco sauce. (Sometimes I wonder why people let me have a computer.) (...or the power of parenthesis.)

If there's one thing you should learn from the internet, it's that there are so many fantastical subcultures in the world. You should partake in them. All of them. Or just this one. Either way.

Ok so maybe you're not on the snappy email list that tells you when and where things are taking place. It's okay. I'll hook you up. Because I'm nice like that! Just click on this link & you'll be transported there like a kitten in a carrier on the way to the vet...except it will be a whole lot faster, and you won't be trapped, or crying, scared, or sliding around on a towel while your owner sings you lullabies hoping it will calm you down even though it won't. Stupid owner. And why you continue to sleep in the carrier when you get home completely baffles everyone. You hate it when it's in the car! Silly you.

Hey, do you want avoid relying on me whenever possible? Good choice! You can sign up to receive those snappy emails yourself! Way to be proactive, reader! I think you'll be happy you took that step.

Soooo, yeah. You should go to a Puppet Slam near you. You should sign up for the Puppet Slam Network's email list (brought to you by IBEX Puppetry) and then you should apologize to your kitten..... or something like that.

3 Days Left!

2011-01-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

So there are 3 days left to vote for a winner in the photo contest! Vote in the poll in the upper right. Amanda's is the Blue Monster who has throughly turned his back on her (not indicative of their entire relationship, I'm sure). Naomi's is the giant shadow puppet cookie about to eat the tiny finger puppet cookie (an amazing replica I might add). Jamie's is the bar scene, showing once & for all that my puppets like to get their drink on. (Please note that no bar fights have been started. They're quite the civilized drunks.) Wheee!

Photo Contest Contestants! (Finally!)

2011-01-02T10:03:00.000-08:00

So life kinda got in the way of Puppet Pie & the photo contest (Read that: Burglary (incl. all of our laptops & cameras), a few diagnosis for our son, school IEP stuff, goose bite infection (...yeah), heater/AC replacement, and a hole in our ceiling.) But I'm looking forward to seeing who the winner is & diving into Puppet Pie face first with a fork in my fist & no napkin to clean the mess (I live dangerously like that). So yeah, thanks for your patience, guys!

So anyway, there were 3 entries to the photo contest...which I think should be annual... I mean, that will give you guys a whole lot of time to come up with new, fun, and exciting ways to play with & photograph your puppets, right? RIGHT! Alright, so let's get started.

Entry #1 is Amanda's.

"This guy keeps me company all the time... this is a picture of him snubbing me, but he's normally pretty friendly... I don't know what was up the day I took this..."

Entry #2 is from Naomi

"I loved the idea of one of my puppets attacking one of Stacey's. What better way than with a giant shadow puppet nomming on the finger puppet!"

Entry #3 is from Jamie

"Puppet Western Bar: Back in the old West after a long day on the trail puppets were able to put their felt up at a local boarding house where they could find a room, warm meal, plentiful libations and engaging company. Just don’t pull on the bartenders’ udders."

So there ya have it. Which one is your favorite? Go vote off to the right. Voting will close February 2nd at midnight blogger-time. The winner & their prize will be announced hopefully sometime when I get around to it in February. (2010 taught me to not promise any real kind of dates)

Wheee!

Puppet Photo Contest-ish!

2010-06-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

So I got it in me to have a puppet photo contest.... so if you own one of my puppets, and a camera, or a friend with a camera, take photos of your Puppet Pie puppet & submit them to the fan page (the link is off to the right, there). If you don't own one of my puppets, then you should buy one.

Rules-ish:

1. Use a puppet that I made in some kind of funderful photo

2. You can submit up to 3 photos

3. Upload them to the facebook group (again, off to the right)

4. By submitting a photo, you're allowing me to pilfer & use your photos for the blog post. If you'd like to submit photos & not participate in the contest, just let me know beforehand & I won't use your photos.

5. You need to submit them by Tuesday, June 29th. I'll post a blog post on the 30th with all of the entries & you can vote on them here, on this blog.

6. Voting will take place for 1 week & will close on WednesdayJuly 7th at 11:59pm.

7. Winner will be announced on July 9th. YAY!

8. Voting is going to be via a poll on the blog. (Highly official)

9. Voting will go for a percentage of the win (totally undetermined...basically I'll allow the general public to influence my decision... Please me; please the world.)

10. Winner agrees to take a photo of themselves with their prize (which is undetermined, but already fantastic) and upload it to the facebook group (So I can steal it & put it here).

10. a) YAY!

10. b) On your mark, get set, GO!

WHEW! WHOOP!

2010-05-30T18:33:00.000-07:00

Mere minutes ago, I got home from the Phoenix Comicon. And while the organization of the event was something no large organization should ever allow to happen (like..it was *bad*), the actual event itself was splendid! I sold lots of puppets & in general hung out with some really rad people.

So where have I been for the last 2 months? Well, I've mostly been working on making puppets for comicon, but I've also had the good pleasure of going back to Toronto to work with Unraku on a project. I really love working with film/video. It's not something I'd ever really envisioned myself actually doing 4-5 years ago, but boy howdy it's fun! Not only is it fun, the people involved with Unraku are simply funderful. They're kind, generous, funny, caring, creative, talented & generally awesome. And they also know of good places to eat. mmm eating. I like eating. I like eating in Toronto with Unraku. Yes.

So right before I got to go to Toronto to eat with Unraku, I came down with pneumonia (and bronchitis & an ear infection). It wasn't too serious. No hospitalization or anything, just a good old-fashioned chest x-ray and a breathing treatment that made me feel like my chest was going to explode. Honestly it's the worst I'd felt since I had my son. But a trip to the Urgent Care is always better than a trip to the ER, so we opted for that.

Jump to 3 weeks later (which means 4 weeks of disease) & I'm still feeling cruddy after a round of antibiotics & inhalers & cough syrups & whatnots. I go back to my Dr. & she decides to run a few tests & put me on a giant antibiotic & some steroids (which were a-ok since I had to get so many puppets made for comicon). She calls me on Tuesday night to let me know that my pneumonia, et. al. was caused by pertussis. That's right, I had whooping cough. WHOOP! WHOOP! So did I heed advice and rest? NO! I couldn't! I had committed to comicon well more than a year ago & I would have been just so sad to miss out.

So here I am, just having gotten home from the Phoenix Convention Center & I still feel fairly rotten. I had an amazing time, but I think I'm going to take it easy for the rest of today & all of tomorrow. Wheezing lungs make for sad lungs. Other than the painful chest & a few other small symptoms, I'm feeling okay. If I feel like this next week, I'll go back for something stronger.

Also, Canada, I totally gave you whooping cough and I am sorry.

The View!

2010-03-18T15:31:00.000-07:00

Let's see if this works, shall we?

I have NO idea what happened to their hair, but I did make them over a period of time from November of 2008-February of 2009, so probably a year's worth of storage & maybe an over-excited comb got all jiggy together.

This is what they looked like before I sent them out. Snappy, eh?

I'm super excited & honored to have had my puppets GIVEN to these women, let alone used on the show! I hope they use them again and again!!

Happy Pi Day!

2010-03-14T03:00:00.000-07:00

Here at Puppet Pie (i.e. my house) we celebrate Pi Day with the essentials. Circles. Circles in the form of wheels, jar-lids, cupcakes, Samoa Girl Scout cookies, Ritz crackers, buttons, eyeballs, felt sticky-dots to go under the furniture so they don't scratch the new floors, spools of thread, and of course, chicken pot pie.

So happy Pi Day to you and your family. May a love of math known only to people who aren't me, find you on this splendid day.

Copyrights, Fan-Art, and You

2010-03-04T08:50:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I might be opening a giant can of worms (read that: passionate discussion) but I thought I'd take a chance on it just being an interesting topic.

As most of us know, if we make a variation of something that someone else has made, then it's considered a derivative work (or fan-art). It therefore wouldn't violate US Copyright laws.

I was recently pointed to a blog on which I was featured (by the author). She said how much she liked my finger puppets & one in particular. She then said, that because she liked it so much, she felt she must own it and therefore put it on her to-do list to make it for herself.

Now instantly I thought, but..but...it's mine! I made it! You can buy it, but I made it! You can't make it! It's mine! (you can see that my instant thoughts are much like that of an advanced 2-year-old)

I encouraged her to make her own designs (or buy the kits Craft: sells). She meant no malice whatsoever, and seems to be a very nice person. There's no sense in meanly saying, "yeah but dude, copyright." to very nice people. Of course I'd prefer for her to buy the puppet flat out, but I don't know her situation, so I can't expect or push for that. And really, it boils down to the fact that I am very thankful that people like my work, especially enough to write about it...

Well, now that I'm far, far away from the situation (a week is far, far away, right?), I'm left to think about fan-art. There is nothing to keep her from making this puppet for herself. No one would really know if she did. But legally, if she wanted to, she could make all of my puppets with mustaches, as long as she doesn't distribute or profit from them in any way.

I guess I'd just never before thought about fan art based on my own work. I know I'm not the first to experience this, and I certainly won't be the last, so I'm curious to hear about others' opinions on the matter.

Alright then: Opinion away!

Silicone Eyes: A lengthy tale of woe

2010-01-04T23:29:00.001-08:00

So, the local doll shop where I get my glass eyes has gone under. I've got mixed emotions about it since the guy who ran the place was a major jerk face poop head bucket of a mean wad...and yet, when I needed puppet eyes I could go and say, "ok this one works, & this one doesn't."

I've had to find a new supplier. Online.

Now, unfortunately I'd never really paid much attention to the actual size of the eyes I'd been buying. There was no need. I simply brought in a puppet's head & held the eyes up & said "ok this one works, & this one doesn't."

I found a supplier & took a chance on the size. They're local, too, which is a plus--except that they still needed to ship things to me.

Now, I really only use the glass eyes in swanky puppets, so when I saw silicone eyes on this website & saw just how swanky the price-tag was, I thought I'd give it a try. I mean, they must cost that much for a reason, right?

I got them & fell in love. They looked & felt so realistic. (yes, I've handled real eyes....) (OK that's a lie, I've never handled real eyes) (OK that's a lie, too. When I was in the 5th grade my class dissected cow eyes. Being the animal rights activist that I was as a 10-year-old (read that as "totally grossed out"), I refrained. However since my dad worked near the butcher, I was required to bring the brown paper sack full of enough cow eyes to entertain a group of curiously twisted 5th graders to my class. On my bicycle. In the rain. So in some sort of truth, I've handled lots of eyes. Except that it wasn't in the rain. I added that part for creative storytelling.)

I had a project that I felt would be perfect for the eye-swank. And they were. Not too bulgy, not too flat. and I could cut them down where I needed to. So awesome I just wanted to bite them. I found the perfect eyeball. I made the eyelids to fit around them perfectly & glued them in with E6000. Then began working on an elaborate tattoo. I stayed up all night to meet this before-Christmas deadline.

My husband woke up to find me busy at work from the night before. Eager to show him my progress, I held up the puppet. He raved about what I had done. "When are you going to glue in the eyes?" said he. "I did already." said I. "Uhh..." said he. "Uhhhhh....WHAT? NO! NO NO NO NO NO!" said I.

The glue didn't stick. One eye looked up at me from the floor. I ran to my hot glue gun with only hours to get this bad Larry to the post office. Hot glue did nothing. Silicone doesn't stick! That's its deal. What was I even thinking? My fried eggs always slide perfectly out of my frying pan, why would I think that E6000, the glue known to the state of California to cause cancer, could hold the eyes to the fabric sockets? Why? Because the glue friggin' causes cancer, that's why!

Desperate, I went to my unventilated workspace to dig out my contact cement. Not only did I have just a few hours, we also had family coming over for breakfast & I was working on 0 sleep two days before Christmas. I grabbed a nearby chopstick & started slopping the yellow goo on. Stupid stinky, yellow goo. I had neither time nor common sense to go cautiously. I let the socket & silicone eye get tacky & shoved them in. Keeping in mind that the lids are usually put on after, I couldn't get the eyes focused. The puppet that I had worked so hard on was quite possibly my most impressive & worst puppet all at the same time. I really hope the silicone doesn't discolor over time.

In improv we say that your best show & your worst show have one thing in common. They're both in the past. And the beauty of improvisational theater (to me) is that it's very temporal. Part of making puppets (for me) is the quasi permanence. I'm making something to last, and I hope it does. I have so many regrets about that puppet...and most of it stems from taking all of that extra time fixing my silicone eye nightmare.

Puppeteers, take heed. Buy not the silicone eyes. As pretty as they may be, they're not your friend. Oh I'm sure I could get silicone epoxy and make my life complete again. But I'm a woman scorned. Scorned by deliciously beautiful eyes. (I still kinda want to bite them.)

bacon stank

2009-12-14T20:44:00.000-08:00

I just feel absent from the blog-writing & if you don't follow me on twitter for some reason or another (i.e. don't care what I'm eating for lunch, if I'm late for work, or what my cats are doing), then you might be wondering where I've gone....or you're not wondering & you're only ever really reading this because we're related or you feel obligated as a friend. Anyway, I've been down with the swanky little swine flu. I'm feeling better (knock on wood) but can't seem to find my energy just yet. Napping seems necessary 95% of my day. Which, for this time of year doesn't bode well for custom orders. So yeah, if you're expecting me to make something for you before Christmas, let's all just keep our finger's crossed!

So in the meantime I've been up to my eyeballs in making puppets. Maybe not literally, but I did find a good eyeball supplier who is local, so that made me happy. It's during this time of year that I get to remind myself to take it one small puppet at a time...or arm...or mouth plate.

Val the Tissue Box

Reminding myself of my first intentions

2009-11-08T02:10:00.001-08:00

So I guess I have to remember that a lot of what I'm doing is being an artist & sharing my art.

Yeah, it's tiny & I've seen one or two of them in my nephew's mouth, but it's still a little bit of a sculpture that only I can spit out of my fingers & brain (really, who else would come up with meatloaf piranha?).

If I sell it, that's great. If I merely make people smile from seeing tiny art, that's good too. Ultimately puppets make people happy, and happiness is really pretty kick-butt-amazing.

So the question comes in with "do I lower prices so people can own my art?" Not right now. When my prices were lower, my production had to be higher to meet demand. That compromised my workmanship as well as my creativity in the creation process. (one can't just spit out UniCorns when one is making mass-produced red fish with really creepy orange eyes, now can they?)

It'd be nice for people to want to own tiny pieces of art, but now isn't the time. I guess I'd rather people spend money on things they need...like real bedazzled tampons, rather than their finger puppet counterpart. Or food...they could buy food.

I wonder what attitude I should have going into this pirate festival this Friday, though. Do I allow it to inspire some awesome pirate themed puppets? Or do I crank out lots of easy-to-make, lower quality finger puppets that I can offer at a lower price to cover the pricey-for-me booth fee? It's a tough.

For comicon, I allow everything I encounter from now until then to inspire kick-patuchus puppets, done over such a vast period of time that I'll have enough inventory. Thankfully comicon kids appreciate tiny expensive things made with my girl-hands.

Brown Bunny of DOOOOOOM!

2009-11-03T10:19:00.001-08:00

I really like the phrase "....of dooom" I think it tells a lot about someone/something, and yet allows that someone/something to keep a certain mystery about them. mmm doom bunnies.

still figuring it out...

2009-10-11T22:22:00.001-07:00

Alright, just because I've got my plot of land & need to watch my fruit ripen (hmm...) doesn't necessarily mean I have my act together enough to have places to put the fruit (uh..yeah), or even to let others know that I've got a sweet little farm goin on (I think my analogy has fallen apart)...

So I did the Sunnyslope Artwalk last night. The good news is that I got sweet new packaging for my finger puppets the day before, which just finished off what they'd been lacking in person for so long. Alright, then! Sunnyslope art-walkers, be prepared to fall in love with some delicious puppet pie! Booyah! In your face artwalk-y people! Yeah!

Ok maybe a little less than that...I had a few people tell me how awesome they were & how I should try to sell to children's boutiques in Scottsdale & I had others tell me that they recognized me from the Puppet Slams. I sold 2 finger puppets to some really rad teenagers who came back 3 times before they got money from their parents (Thanks, stranger Mom & Dad!).

So that's good, right? I made my money back from the booth fee plus three dollars! $3 is good for 8 hours, right?

I mean, it would be good if the people to the right & left of me hadn't been selling things every 5-10 minutes....I felt very over-looked. And I wasn't the whole night, I did get people coming by & telling me that my stuff was great, but anytime I had a lull, it was a long one & nobody else was lulling.

They sell so much better online, and I'm not sure why. Are people buying them because they like what I write? Do they just look horrible in-person? Are people afraid to pay $12-$18 on something 2" tall in person whereas they're okay with it online? Why did I forget to buy eyes while I was at Michael's the other day? Drat......And what about Naomi?

So I was sitting back and observing a lot. My friend Erin makes the most amazing Sock Zombies in the world. She just won a Best of Phoenix Award for them. We were in the same issue of the Phoenix NewTimes, I was in as an artist, she was in as a winner of "Best Zombie Related Art", & I'm all manners of proud..Anwyay, she was on one side, and some tweens were on the other side with bottlecaps-turned-magnets that they were selling for charity. I kept hearing "Whoopies" "Sock Zombies" all night...

Was anyone saying "Puppet Pie"? Well of course not...in order to see those words anywhere, they'd have to walk over, pick up a plastic box & look at the bottom (of which the lids keep popping off) before they could even find the words "puppet pie". And even then, when they flipped things over the first things out of their mouths were "No choking allowed" and then they'd say the name of the puppet. Just walking by, from far away they could see some things in containers & a pig hand puppet inside of an unfinished wood dollhouse (I keep saying I need to put electricity in before I put wallpaper in...so I'm stalling)--but nowhere could they see the fantastical words "Puppet Pie" to intrigue them to see what was in the actual booth. (On a side note, I dont think I'll use the dollhouse again until I finish it. because really...)

It's the same reason that nobody bought the painted dirt clods that Zachary & I sold from the playhouse in my parents' backyard when we were 7. Nobody knew we were there! Had they known, we'd have run out of the painted dirt clods, for sure--and probably have had the local paper come and do a story on the operation to boot! (It really was high quality work)

So long story short...ok not really short, but to conclude my long story, I'm making a banner. Well, I'm designing a banner & I'll have someone print it up & ship it to me.

I questioned whether or not I should just give up doing artwalks, but I think I can't give up just yet. I'll get a banner first, then I'll give up! That's called perserverance, and baby, I gots it!

Again, with the spelling...I hope I got at least a 97%.

It just occurred to me...

2009-10-09T02:19:00.001-07:00

a) Occurred was a vocabulary word in my junior year of High School. I will never forget that.

b) I've done a bucket load's of really rad stuff that I feel compelled to list, but then I feel like that would be bragging, but then I feel like if a blog is for nothing else, it's to feel mildly indulgent, even if it's informative, because really most things people do are indulgent. I really hope I'm spelling Indulgent right....

c) I really like run-on sentences. although that didn't just occur to me. I've known this.

d) I really don't think I'm bragging. I'm just being self-indulgent to see every awesome thing that has happened to me in one place. I'm not looking for a pat on the back, because really all of this stuff is a pat on the back in and of itself (however I won't stop you) And they're not in choronological order. They're reasons I'm proud of myself at 2am.

Etsy made a video about me. FREAKING WOW!
I was in a Barenaked Ladies video for which my friend Noah Ginex did all his fancy-pants stuff (but he still credited me as a co-concept, set designer, assistant puppet builder, and puppeteer. I did do those things, and feel as though my roles were very minor, but it's really nice to actually be recognized for what I did do)
I've taught at-risk youth for 4 years the art of puppetry. That right there is something big because someone trusted me enough to do that. And man, kids are really great at writing scripts.
I was asked to make some last-minute puppets that were in two Phoenix Coyotes commercials. One with Wayne Gretzky (yeah, take that, Canada! I totally got to them before you did!)
I was commissioned to make 5 puppets of and for 5 famous people (2 of them are legends...one has her own Webster's Dictionary entry) and they now own those puppets. What a kick-tuchus privilege.
I've won awards for my film-making & writing with puppetry, and have shared those proudly with my friend Mack.
I've sustained performing puppet shows for grown-ups in Phoenix for 7 years.
I've managed to send my puppets to people in more than 10 different countries. (like..they even asked for them)
I was asked to be an artist for The NewTimes Best of Phoenix edition.
I've managed to titilate more than 3650 people on Etsy.com enough that they've added my shop as a favorite. (freakin' a!)
People like what I write. (well, up until now, anyway)
I'm pursuing something that I've loved since I was a toddler. I feel connected to my grandfather, who--even though he died when I was very young, I admired greatly.
I was asked to make finger puppet kits for the MakerShed (Craft Magazine's online store) & even saw my finger puppets printed in their magazine in an ad for the store! &
I was invited to be a demonstrator at the MakerFaire
I've been to Toronto to "work" with awesome puppeteers
I've received scholarships to puppetry festivals...People want me to learn, grow, and succeed!

I think of myself as this kid who is still trying to find her place (with her puppets) in the arts world....I forget that I've been recognized. I don't forget that my life is really rad & that really awesome stuff has happened to me (well, I forget some of the things)...but I do forget to see the big picture of it all. So here, now at 2:15am, I can see that I don't need to search for my place. I have my place. I've got this nice little plot of land. Now I get to lay down some irrigation & watch my seedlings grow into something even more amazing. Or are my plants already growing and I just need to sit back & enjoy each step of seeing the fruit form? Or is the fruit already there & all I need to do is harvest and eat it? Either way, something needs to be enjoyed.

Mmmm delicious, delicious puppet pie!

Autumn Pumpkin

2009-10-03T11:25:00.001-07:00

More and more I'm realizing that I love Autum. Part of that may be because it's a huge break from our wretched summer. Part of it is that I'm older & don't dread, but rather look forward to back-to-school. And part of it, I think the main part, is that I've grown to appreciate the beauty of nature in that this is a time that (bear with me, I'm getting all I-love-the-Earth on you) we're given all of these wonderful things back from Nature. We work hard to plant things all year, and this is the time of year that so many wonderful vegetables are coming back to us. I can't wait for butternut squash soup and pumpkin pie. Even just the smell of the basil coming off of the garden at my son's school fills me with such ooey gooey feelings that I can't help but be thankful and slip out of the internet and into nature.

I'm totally reflective today.

2% Guilt

2009-08-26T19:13:00.000-07:00

Good news and bad news on the health-front.

Good news is that I have no gallstones.

Bad news is that I have no gallstones.

I was hoping that would be it so we could get my galbladder out of there & life could go on--without pain. Wouldn't that be nice? It would. Look at that, I didn't even make you think of an answer. I so nice.

It could be a peptic ulcer. I mean, did you see the list of all the stuff I had to get done in 2 days? Yeah, that's ulcersville right there. But again, nobody's ruling out my gallbladder.

So...about the guilt. I've left my shop really unattended all summer long & decided I'd get things back to normal once we were home from vacation & the boy was in school--I wasn't exactly expecting to start working the same day as well. I actually did pretty well when we first got back, but now I'm Mrs. Slacker Von SlackyPants McGee . You can call me Slacky for short, I suppose. Hmm no, on second thought, I want the respect of my full name being used. Mrs. Slacker Von SlackyPants McGee to you, friend.

So, to make up for it, do you think I've made new puppets? Listed new things? Heck no! Instead I've re-arranged my shop & dropped some prices on things and put them into what we like to call a "Sale" category. Yep, Mrs. Slacker von SlackyPants McGee is really putting in the effort, now.....without actually having to put in any effort.

And I'm not writing this to plug anything (this is a lie), I'm writing to in form the people about my slackage. So don't be surprised if you don't see me mention that some puppets have dropped anywhere from $2-4 in price. I know, I know, you'd like me to tell you about the future of this sale section, and how different things will rotate through and how you might find your favorite puppet slapped in there as though I don't even care about the workmanship--but I won't tell you that because I can't see the point in making this blog post about self-promotion. That'd just be selfish. I think we've established pretty well that I'm not selfish, I'm a slacker.

Just in case you missed it:

oh change, you silly weasle, you.

2009-08-23T23:54:00.000-07:00

WOW! What a week!

So....On Tuesday of last week I found out that the puppetry after-school program's funding is in question/limbo/happy-go-funny-wait-time-happy-hour. So that's my normal school-year job. Which means who needs a job to keep that fabulous car? This girl! (I'm pointing to myself...that is..when I'm not typing.)
It's made known to me that my son's school is looking for someone as an after-school assistant. I find out on Sunday that they'd like me to apply to at least sub in the classroom while my job with the theater is sorted out. They want me to start Wednesday. Like...I have 2 days to get everything I need in order.
What do I need in order, you ask?
CPR/First Aid certification
Food Handler's License
TB Test
Vaccination verification
Criminal history notarized
Application
Resume
4 letters of reference
plus a little back-to-school shopping for the boy-child (who is an official kindergartener!) and he needs non-character slippers for Wednesday as well. (we started the same day--see below)

I got it all done and made his slippers from scraps of leather my mom had given me years ago & puppet fleece (not Antron, don't freak out).
I felt like superwoman. really. I felt like what I accomplished in 2 days shouldn't have been attainable. It was the back-to-school miracle.

I got up on Wednesday morning to make my family a happy breakfast of scrambled eggs & toast & saw my boy off to school.......Then went back to bed with some of the most horrible cramping EVER.

I thought I'd eaten something wrong, or was maybe nervous...or hey, maybe I even gave myself an ulcer...either way, I went off to school, eating anytime my tummy was bothering because it felt like I was always hungry--painfully hungry. Really, really painfully hungry.

So that went on 2 days/3 nights before I decided to go to the doctor's office. yeah...turns out I have gallstones. yay!
At least she's 98% sure I have gallstones. Her stat order on the ultrasound meant that I get to wait until this coming Thursday. (They originally told me a week from Monday-I said no thank you, they got me in Thursday.)
So in the meantime, I get to experience pain that's pretty darn close--if not equal--to when I birthed the kiddo nearly 6 years ago. Yay! And I get to eat a 0-fat diet. that's not the letter O sitting there, that's a zero. And the sad thing is that even applesauce and bananas aren't settling my tummy down. Stupid gallbladder and its stupid-stupidhead.
I'll likely have to get it removed--which is welcomed at this point. I'm on day 5 of this. I'm all for not experiencing this anymore.

I do feel badly that I had to call in on my third day there. I'll see how tonight/tomorrow morning goes before I call in tomorrow.

So that's all non-puppetry related...because you need to know about my gallstones, right? yes.

Anwyay...on Saturday I dragged myself over to my sewing machine to make 8 more glove monsters. I did them for the cancer fundraiser, but didn't sell any, so I might put them up on Etsy soon. Other than that, though, I'm not making much. It's just difficult to concentrate when your stomach screams at you every 10 minutes.

I think it hired the mob.

Hey did I ever show you the bunny I made for a custom order? You've probably seen it by now, but nevertheless...

Wiggin' Out!

2009-08-11T19:54:00.001-07:00

On August 22nd I'll be going to an awesome local dairy farm in Mesa. Not to drink milk---no, that'd be silly. I'm allergic. Instead I'll be peddling my wares and trying to help raise money for The American Cancer Society's "Look Good, Feel Better" program that provides wigs and support to patience undergoing cancer treatments.

The evening is going to have hay rides, honey demonstrations, horse rides, a petting zoo, a dj, raffles (you could win a puppet!) and silent auctions...seriously, for only $10 per family (as a suggested donation) there is no reason you shouldn't go and support the event.

I'm Home!

2009-07-21T10:37:00.001-07:00

I'm back from my many trips around the US..Ok really it's only two...and just Atlanta and Denver...but still, I'm home!

Puppetry Festival. wow. I can't even explain it (I can, that's a lie). It was a great festival. In some ways it exceeded Puppet Rampage (the last Puppeteers of America festival in 07) and in some ways it didn't. Overall it was great!

Highlights for me were the shows with excellent storytelling. This festival reiterated to me just how wonderful your storytelling needs to be. When you're in a dark room in a cozy chair and you're averaging 3-4 hours of sleep per night, and your days are very busy, the only thing that will keep you awake is fantastic storytelling. Pretty visuals, beautiful music, and wonderful manipulation are the things that help you drift off to sleep. A good story with good pacing will keep your eyes open.

To the puppeteers of the world: Please surround yourself with good storytelling abilities. Take improv workshops, take creative writing classes, watch good plays and puppet shows, entertain yourself. If you feel you have to stretch something, don't. Stretching for time can often lead to the SNL effect. Think about it. SNL has one punchline that they carry out about 2 minutes longer than they should. Make your point and move on. If you add material, that's okay--but add quality material that will keep me wanting to keep my eyes open. Don't be afraid of using a director. Tighten and strengthen your show by eliminating scenes that don't get you to your goal (whether that be revealing character or plot). Good story can cover a multitude of puppetry sins. It has for me.

I'll try to remember to write more about the festival in detail when I can. I'm still suffering from Post Festival Exhaustion.

Hey look, embedment!

2009-07-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

So...Found a way to embed it. I think.

You can embed it too. just uh...go to

http://www.etsy.tv/video/Mister-Donuts-Handmade-Moment-2

and copy the embedding code to the right. then embed it somewhere. Like your lawn. But somewhere a lot of people will see it--so like the lawn in your front yard, not the back...my husband suggested the White House's lawn--because he thinks he's funny.

Why I've not been making finger puppets: an excuse in more than 140 characters

2009-07-02T16:39:00.000-07:00

I checked how many puppets I'd made in June. only 21. That's a far cry from my goal of 60 finger puppets/month. like...a really far cry. But I have a good excuse! My dog ate my--er..no...my friggin FIVE cats made me play with them.

Slight detour: We have 5 cats. 3 are 3 months old. We decided about 3 months ago that we'd probably keep them all. However, I do really enjoy seeing the exact same set of worried eyebrows on my friends' faces when they, for the 7th time, ask me, "So have you decided whether or not you're going to keep them?" My husband (yes, I'll blame him) had pretty much declared that we'd keep them all the moment we found out there were only 3. Still, each time the kittens are brought up, someone will ask, "So have you decided to keep all of them?" And they look at me like--if I do, I run the risk of donning a large, floral-print, over-sized mu'umu'u and chasing children down the street shaking a broom at them. To which I say, I don't even know where to buy a mu'umu'u. I do have a husband and a child...hopefully that will keep me from turning into an old cat-lady. And I go back to the husband-blaming I mentioned earlier. Totally his fault. He was allergic for so many years, I think this is his way of falling off the wagon.

Back to the road.
So I really do have a good excuse. I've been working on a very short (30 seconds) video for Etsy.com. They're having a "make us a commercial & you can win some $" contest. So I did. I'm hoping it wins. But I suppose everyone who enters a video into the contest hopes it wins. If they didn't I'd be surprised.

Ok here's where it gets a little "uh oh": They choose the top 25 videos that go to the finals based on the number of views they get! (see? Uh oh.) I'm not sure if it's individual ISP views (meaning that you can view it once from your computer) or if it's the total number of views (meaning you can watch it a few times from your computer). So here's what I ask the 12 of you who read my blog to do: I need you to watch it. And! If you like it, send it to your friends, have them watch it too & tell them that your weirdo-friend made it. If you don't like it, send it to all of your enemies as punishment for being your enemy. Or if you're ambivalent about it, you can send it to your friends as punishment--or to your enemies as a reward.

I've gone on and on about watching it and I've provided you no link by which to see. I'm terrible.
http://www.etsy.tv/video/Mister-Donuts-Handmade-Moment-2
Hooray! I'm not terrible anymore!

Alright then. World: do me proud. pretty please.

You Pick

2009-06-22T21:55:00.000-07:00

Ok world,

In an attempt to keep myself creating I need you to help me push past the wall. I'm good on hand puppets--I have plenty of things to work on there--but in the hours of the day/night when my mind can't handle sitting at a sewing machine and isn't responisble enough to use a dremel, I need to know what to do.

I have 100% wool felt (with all these schmancy vegetable dyes and the whathaveyou--it's quite nice) & I'm not sure what to make with them. I'm thinking kid-friendly stuff with the 100% wool felt and I'll save the acrylic felt (of which I still have gobs) for things like microwaves and nunchucks.

But I need your ideas. This is yet another Puppet Pie Call To Duty. Please post (anonymously if you really want to) what puppet you think I should make. It doesn't mean I'll make it--it means that I'll really consider making it.

Things to keep in mind:

1. I won't make a penis, boogers or poop. (This is a classy operation)
2. I probably won't make a lightbulb or a peanut anytime soon.
3. I'm not an engineering genius--keeping shapes simple is good.
4. It's possible I've done it before. Look at my flickr or my sold section on Etsy to check.
5. Just because I've done it before, doesn't mean I won't do it again.
6. Put it in the comments so I have a place to find it. Telling me on twitter doesn't suffice.

What will you get if I choose to make your idea? Bragging rights. And if you're the first person to have ever given me the idea, I'll mention you in puppet's description.

Where is summer going?

2009-06-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of the summer I had several projects laid out for me.

1) make a few videos
2) make some more hand puppets
3) animate *something*
4) finger puppets galores
5) maybe enroll the boy-child into swim lessons

I thought, Wow, I've got a lot of time to kill this summer!

Now its June 7th. Officially 1 week into June. We leave for vacations (and puppetry festivals!) for most of July (anyone want to cat-sit?). That means I only have three weeks left before my time to work on projects comes to an end! Yikes? Yikes, indeed.

First priority- Custom orders. I've got two to finish by the end of June. Totally doable.

Second Priority- Etsy video. To be honest, I'll likely do this sometime this week--before the two custom orders are done. I need to get it up as soon as possible--it's just a matter of writing out an acceptable dialog and then turning on the camera. Writing the acceptable dialog is the difficult part.

Third Priority- Make hand puppets! I've been stalling on making more hand puppets for my etsy shop for a long time, now. It probably has something to do with the fact that I need to clean my craft space.

Fourth Priority- I've been wanting to make some videos with my finger puppets. I want to make them elaborate, but I don't know where to go from there. I just know: Elaborate.

Throughout everything- Finger puppets. This is something I can do every day. I could probably make gazillions of these in a month, but to be honest, it's a matter of not knowing what to make sometimes. I mostly rely on my friends to tell me what they want me to make--if I get inspired from that, usually it's a winner (i.e. safety cone). But if I could, my brain would just make bunnies and puppies and kittens and mice (that, let's be honest, all look roughly the same when I make them). So if you have ideas, go ahead and leave them in the comments. I might make it. I'm trying not to make too many elaborate finger puppets right now, mostly because the price-points are more than anyone is really willing to pay for 2" of felt right now. And hey, I still might make it if it's a completely awesome idea.

If you were a newsletter, what would you say?

2009-05-22T23:14:00.001-07:00

This shouldn't be a very big deal. I've written newsletters before that have gone out to 400 different households. A simple puppetry guild newsletter is easy, right? I mean, I write for my descriptions on Etsy all the time, it's all puppetry related, it should be a piece of cake to master a simple newsletter.

It should be.

For some reason it's not.

Our previous guild president, Ed Rogers, has been amazing and has written them for I don't even know how long. For June, he handed the newsletter duties off to me. It's about time I stepped up, anyway. And this is something I probably should have had written several weeks ago. I've been trying to second-guess what people might want to read.

When writing descriptions for my puppets, or writing puppet shows--or even writing this--I do it from a standpoint of "fooey on you and your mom, this is for me." But when writing for the newsletter, I feel as though it's selfish to write for myself. Let me rephrase--It's inappropriate to be selfish and write for myself when writing a newsletter for the guild. I think.

On the internet, you have a choice whether or not to keep reading. And you have somewhere else to go....but guild newsletter readers are hostage to my every whim. Which gives me all kinds of wonderful ideas for things to put in the newsletter, but with my sense of humor--it would only be funny to me. Like...nobody wants to see my grocery list there, however, I really want to put it in. Like...really badly. No really, I need to get Ziploc baggies and the guild needs to know.

Maybe I'll have to write a few horrible articles in order to get it out of my system.

If I do, I may post them here.

I think another thing holding me back is my lack of experience. Most of these puppeteers have at *lease* 20 years on me. Most of them have 40+ years on me. I know, I know, everyone can teach someone something. I should teach them about how much I need Ziploc baggies.

So if you were to read a puppetry guild's real newsletter, what do you want to read about?

I give short notice because I'm short

2009-05-12T00:11:00.001-07:00

So I've had this lovely plan for weeks: I'll have a sale that I advertise in advance in many places. That works, right?

It does if I remember to actually advertise it in important places...like my blog--which I know at least 33 people pretend they read. One is probably my mom. (Hi Mom. Glad you liked the flowers!). So hopefully someone reads it before...well, 8 hours from now.

So here's the deal....I'm going to have a TP party. That silly Toilet Paper puppet that my friend Cynthia made me make is so darn popular (not poopular, i refuse to say poopu--dag nabbit)

Anyway, it's been added to people's favorites 44 times since I listed him like 2 months ago. So I figured I'd make a bunch and sell those only at a lower price--because obviously they're lower quality. I mean...one has googly eyes for crying out loud. But I'm also adding a bunch of other swell puppets, too. Puppets I haven't even photographed yet, they're so amazingly awesome!

If you come to my blogtv show on Tuesday nights at 8pm PST, then you've probably seen the weird-butt puppets I've made for this, but other than that, I'm not giving anything away! Nope. You totally won't know that I'm going to list grilled steak to be companion to my raw steak. And you totally won't even expect a super kitten with a mask and EVERYTHING. (All caps required). And I'm definitely not telling you about the amazing carrot-bunny that I made. Because I did. I made one. It's amazing.

So....anyway. Um... My cat had 3 kittens and they're really cute. This is pirate. That's all.

I really have nothing important to say

2009-05-03T00:55:00.000-07:00

Usually when I post to this here bloggity blog, I have some kind of idea I wish to express. Not this time, friend. This time the only idea I have in my brain is "wow, has it really been a whole month since I've posted? What the shibbidiboo have I been doing???"

Oh...right. In-school residency to 4th graders. wow. yeah. Privileged 4th graders at that....150 privileged 4th graders. Save us all.

It made me really appreciate my 1st graders. That's not to say that 4th graders are horrible...their puppets turned out beautifully--and one-on-one, I fully enjoy the conversations I have with 4th graders. Even in small groups....but you get 150 of them and all bets are off. Even in groups of 30. This is why I didn't become a teacher.

there were 5 groups of 30 kids...each did a different type of puppetry (Shadow, Overhead projector, hand, rod, & marionettes). Thankfully I didn't head this thing up. I'd have made them all draw faces on their fingers with a sharpie and called it temporary finger puppetry. "The good news, kids, is that you get to take your finger puppets home with you!--provided you don't wash your hands"

That went on for 3 weeks. At the end of the 3 weeks I was physically and emotionally spent. Teaching is tiring! Teaching 150 4th graders AND our 28 first graders all in the same day? WOW. Yeah, tiring.

I was--and still am--however, thankful for the job and the experience. It was neat to watch it somehow get pulled off. And in the end, the kids did a good job on their puppets and on their performances.

So...I guess that's where I've been...kinda. I also attended the Phoenix Improv Festival & did the National Day of Puppetry (how did I not post that?!) But I suppose I'll talk about that another time? (I probably won't really...) I mean...yes, I'll most certainly talk about that another time!

It's here!

2009-04-03T12:12:00.000-07:00

On my birthday. *squee*

Click To Play

You can also read the article here that has a link to an impromptu interview we did about 18 months ago.

Tomorrow Is My Birthday.

2009-04-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

That is all.

Attention!

2009-03-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

I'm the youngest child in my family. I also have red hair. Both of these things combined have made me into the lovely attention whore I am today...although whore is such a "negative" word....Or is it?

You may question the red hair thing, but when you're a member of just 2% of the population on Earth, people comment on your hair.... a lot. Especially when you were such a cute little bugger. (See above.)

Attention seems to go in waves. Particularly when it comes to my Etsy shop. Sometimes things are all a flurry, and sometimes not so much. Right now it's certainly a-flurry! Hooray!

I've had the lucky-luck of having been featured in an Etsy-wide (subscribers at least) email by Tina seamonster, who is everywhere and is super-awesome-wacky-fun. I've also been on the homepage of Etsy.com a couple of times within the last month or so.... And 1000 Markets featured my bacon puppet--and then a pretty snarky twitter account who can get downright mean sometimes (I won't mention who...) featured me as well! Wheee!

So I've been getting lots and lots of "hooray me" time. Isn't that fun?

There's more, world. There's more....

Not only is this a feature, this is a call to duty for you good people...all 27 of you. It's time to stand up for your country--whichever country that may be--and vote for my wonky finger puppet! I know you may be tempted to vote for something better or more adorable, or better made, or funnier...but resist those urges that cause you to be honest in your voting and vote for me! This is a friggin popularity contest here and won't I be so sad when I only have 2 votes at the finish line. So yes, I'm asking for your pity-vote. Hooray pity votes!

The sad thing here is that I'm "competing" against some of my favorite people--totally unfair...and I'm finding new favorite people, too...I mean, c'mon, pizza cake? Total winner!

So yeah...uhhh vote for my finger. please.

That's the entire point of this blog post.

I'm getting all serious about poop

2009-03-06T20:15:00.000-08:00

As the title would suggest, I'm getting serious about poop. And I don't mean I'm making more toilet paper finger puppets. Not until the first one sells, anyway. I mean that I'm setting up goals! I'm asking myself if I'm successful. I'm pursuing talking about success so I can avoid actually taking action on that success. (I'm honest, right?)

So I set out some goals for myself. As I mentioned...yeah. I'm on codeine (legally). Give a girl a break.

I often get a bug in my butt to go posting to Etsy.com's forums about how to succeed in life. And I give amazingly good advice. Such good advice that I actually sell it. And people actually buy it (crazy, right?). So this is a refined post to the forums that got ignored, but I don't want myself to forget it. So I'm posting it here so I can go back and read it like a narcissist.

Some of them are pretty darn generic. OK, most of them are. It's like they don't really tell me anything, but it sounds pretty.

Ready? Are you? You don't care, do you, you just want to see pictures of puppets. I made dead jam the other night. It's nice. I'll get photographs up once my ruptured eardrum (yes, ouch) allows me to get up and do things. like shower. (I know).

OK so some of these things have already happened, so that's awesome. Some I'm still waiting on. That's okay. In fact, I think it's good.

Artistically I'll know I'm succeeding if:
1. People all over the world are viewing my work. And smiling.
2. I get compliments on my work.
3. I'm creating new work that isn't forced.
4. My work is represented in multiple cultures/countries and speaks to a broad population.
5. I gain recognition among peers in my field.

Businessly(totally a word, I did not just make up that word):
1. People buy my work.
2. Enough people buy my work that I survive.
3. I have 1000 fans that spend at least $10 each year.
4. I gain at least 100 hearts/month*

Ways to make it happen:
1. Not treating it like a job, but rather treating it as though I'm positively surviving on loving what I do./Focus deeply on loving what I do.
2. Seeking out avenues locally to display and showcase my work.
3. Pursuing education in my art form so I don't become stagnant.
4. Introducing my work to people outside of my selling venues.
5. Establish meaningful connections with fans. But not in a whore-y way.
6. Seeking out support from other artists, both in my field and elsewhere.
7. Not allowing myself to not create. Pushing past the runner's wall.

OK so some of those sound a little gay. (Pause--I tried to think of a synonym for this that would still convey the fact that I understand that I know I'm being really....uh..gay about it all, that wasn't offensive, but I'm taking codeine and my brain-thesaurus isn't working properly, so gay it is!--Unpause) But that's what I came up with for goals. I have a few specific goals that I didn't put here because I just didn't. I don't need to justify to you people!........Ok so it's because it's just businessy stuff that probably isn't useful to anyone but me. A laundry list, if you will.

*For those of you who don't know, "hearts" on Etsy.com are given to you when someone adds your shop or item to their favorite bookmarks to their profile. So the goal here is to have 100 people add my shop to their favorites per month. I could just say that, but hearts sounds more cutesy. And if I'm all about anything, it's cutesy. Hence the bloody tampon. Schmadorable.

Oh, and somewhere in the middle, I threw in a picture of a daisy in a jar. I've decided that jars are the way to go when packaging my finger puppets for in-person shops. I suppose if people want, they can have jars in the mail. I'm sorry Amanda, but I really, really like it. Thems is funny to me.

On that note, you should come watch me every Tuesday night at 11pm EST on blogtv. because you need further proof that I'm a dork. Yes, watch me make finger puppets and chat with the people. My good friend and fellow puppeteer, Mack Duncan usually co-hosts with me.

Hello, Target Audience

2009-03-01T15:07:00.000-08:00

I'll admit, I didn't know who you were for a long time. Oh, I had a vague idea. You're someone who likes silly things. You've got a pretty good sense of humor. You like to give cute things to small children. Sometimes you talk to people in silly voices. But I didn't know what other things you liked. I didn't know where you spent your time.

I tried to find you a few places, like street fairs and and you weren't really there. I'd get people who looked and giggled, but they weren't you. I just figured you didn't really leave the house. Maybe you just like getting stuff online because of my fancy writing words. Maybe my target audience just likes reading, and that's cool. You can read. I'll just not go out into the world to try to find you. Problem solved, right?

Then my friend asked me to accompany her to the Phoenix Comicon. I did. I found you! I didn't think I'd find you there, but I did! You do leave the house! But I don't think I found all of you...

So, I guess I still don't feel like I know who you really are. I know you're not always into comic books and Star Trek. You might be into puppetry, reading books. You might hang out at libraries, or at Starbucks. You might be Miss Soccer Mom in a hot bikini. Heck, you might even be Mister Soccer Mom in a hot bikini....But I just don't know.

Now is the time for me to get to know you. Please leave a comment just telling me a bit about yourself. Be anonymous or not, I just need to know the essence of you. Where do you go? How old are you? What kind of job do you have? Are you a homeowner? Do you like your job? What are your favorite kinds of stores to shop in? What do you watch on TV? How often do you wash your hair? What is your favorite movie from the 80s? What kinds of puppets do you think I should make? All of this is to help me stalk you. All of you. No need telling me what time of day you wake up, I'll find that out on my own. From your lawn.

Totally Bad Form. I'm Sorry.

2009-02-21T23:35:00.000-08:00

So while I was chatting with Alice Cooper today at the Boys' & Girls' Club Fundraiser Banquet, he told me a neat story about his time filming The Muppet Show in London in 1978. The year I was born. I didn't tell him about that. I didn't want him to feel old.

He said they spent about a week rehearsing the show in London before they taped it. (Maybe he said 4 days and that they were in London for a week?) He seemed surprised by that. He also told me how wonderful it was to do a number with Miss Piggy...and then mentioned how interesting it was that, Frank Oz, being so into his character (and insisted that Piggy may have been coming onto him during their duet) Mr. Cooper would forget that it was just a puppet. He'd get an idea for something and say "oh, you should put your head on my shoulder, like this" but he'd look at the puppet while saying it & then realize, the puppet wasn't necessarily watching him and then he'd ask the same question again, this time toward Mr. Oz's face somewhere below. He lit up when he started talking about it. It was surely good times.

Ok, so yeah I make it sound like Mr. Cooper and I chat on a daily basis...we don't. This is really only my 2nd encounter with the man, and the first was so minuscule.

We used to attend his church (not for very long at all), but when my son was a toddler & getting wiggly during the service one Sunday, I had him walk up the steps toward the back of the church with me. Mr. Cooper (Vince) was sitting on an end seat. I didn't know it was him, just noticed that there was an older gentlemen with long black hair flirting with my little boy. My little boy totally dug it. Totally.

When my little boy grew up to be a bigger little boy (so maybe about 3), he saw Season 3 of The Muppet Show & from then on wanted to watch the Alice Cooper episode over and over and over again. I ended up telling him about how Alice Cooper flirted with him when he was a toddler at church and it just sealed the deal. He was a die-hard fan. School's Out was his favorite song (Oh and when Guitar Hero came out with that as one of the play options? WOW yeah...he knows that one). When Dave Goelz came to visit Arizona, I pulled the kiddo out of school that day so we could go watch The Muppet Movie with him at the library. So what does my inquisitive 4-year-old ask to the puppeteer with Gonzo on his hand in front of the boy's face? "What puppets did you do in the Alice Cooper muppets?"

So tonight, when we were at a fundraiser (totally bad form, I know, I'm sorry Mr. Cooper,...I feel bad...kinda), and I saw Alice Cooper 3 feet from my face, I had to just let him know, "Hey, we used to go to church together & I just have to say, my son thinks you're the bee's knees."

I didn't want to go home and say, "Hey! Guess who I saw!" and not also get to say, "Guess what he told me!"

So, thank you Mr. Cooper. My son will leap with joy tomorrow when he wakes up and I tell him how I got to talk to his hero, and how his hero had a story for me to relay back. You made my night because I know just how much it means to my little boy. And I promise, the next fundraiser we win tickets to, I won't accost anyone. Totally promise. I'll also not wear a hoodie to semi-formal event...probably.

As a side note: The banquet was beautiful. I don't know that I've ever had someone put a napkin on my lap for me before. The Boys' & Girls' Clubs in the Phoenix area raised close to a $1 million (if not more)! It was neat to see a large group of filanthropists still giving gobs of money to worthy causes in spite of rough economic times. Also, Shaquille O'Neal is really, really tall. like. Wow. Also, best word of the night: Shaq-lock-holmes. Also, here's a bee--for funsies' sake.

Hello. I made corn.

2009-02-15T22:01:00.000-08:00

Sentences like, "I made corn," make me think that I did something wrong in my pants.

Does this make me juvenile? Sure. Can I do a higher form of humor? You bet. My theory is that the world has a lot of class, high society, and fine, respectable culture in it. It really does. It might not have enough, but it has a lot. Sometimes my job as a human is to add to that fine culture, and sometimes it's not. I choose most of the time to not, not because I think "oh I want a cheap laugh from the audience," but because I truly enjoy giving myself that cheap laugh. And honestly I don't think it's usually a very *cheap* laugh. I think it comes at a great expense to everyone's intellect. However it does come with a certain amount of bravery.

As a mild example, I don't know many people who talk about babies choking to death with humor. While, I'm very serious that babies should not choke to death (I really don't recommend it--in fact I'll go so far as to say I truly oppose choken babies--yes, choken.), I don't have any problem making light of a serious situation. I wonder if people read things & pay attention more when they're funny. I think they might.
Hey want to give that 6-month-old a finger puppet because you love them? Oh better not, that one girl was like, "your baby's going to die from your love." And she was right. She being me. The right one.

I know when I'm writing shows or even writing listings for my etsy shop (yes, I'll plug it) I'm supposed to have a message that plays to the top of my audience's intelligence, but there's a time and place for that. I think right now my time and place requires that I talk about corn like it's in my pants. That makes me happy. Maybe it will make other people happy, too.

Fun.

2009-02-11T16:36:00.001-08:00

First of all, I would like to say that after a week of watching Care Bears 2, A New Generation, several times a day for just about a week, I am ready to blog about it. Which might be a step slightly above gouging out my eyes. The inconsistencies between the two movies is just an abortion. And why do the Care Bears and the Care Bear Cousins fully mature from infancy in a week? Oh, I could go on for hours, but I won't. This journal is supposed to be about puppetry, not writers who feel they can throw out everything we know and love about the Care Bears & the Care Bear Cousins just to help Kenner sell some Baby Care Bear plush toys. I only curse them because it worked.

I seem to get involved with projects I'm not allowed to talk about. Torture. Pure torture. So yesterday we did this thing with a video camera and it was super fun! I promise it has to do with puppets, but I can't promise that I'll ever be able to tell you what it really is. But I do promise that there's no nudity involved, but I can't promise that no one will ever see that lack of nudity. I'm not lying. Anyway, it's one of those things that was just so much fun that I want to tell everyone about how much fun it was and at the same time I can't, so I just have to be really really vague and hope that my rambling here about nothing whatsoever is mildly entertaining and just confusing enough that nobody really knows what I'm talking about and yet therapeutic enough that I get it out of my system with no questions from anyone. Longest sentence ever.

Sometimes words just come out of my brain. No other explanation.

So...I guess you deserve to look at Meatloaf.

Two days & broken promises

2009-02-05T00:02:00.001-08:00

I'm totally writing something today even though I wrote something yesterday. If I keep this up, you people are going to think I'm a whore for blogging. So maybe I am? What of it?

Thanks to the schmancy Google Analytics, I found out that the average time someone spends here is just under a minute. 53 seconds to be exact. So to help out with the necessity of the peek & dash, I'm going to not write an epic novel today. Or maybe I am, who knows, its like 1am, I could do something incredibly crazy like that! Wheee!

I have some kind of exciting secret thing coming up tomorrow that I'm excited and secretive about. Let's just say I'd rather not have broken out with bad acne tonight. That shouldn't give you any real kinds of hints, but...yeah. I'd just rather not have it. Not like there's a good time for a break-out, there are just more inopportune times than others.

Did I mention that I participated in a 24-hour film challenge that the IFP in Phoenix put on? I'm not linking anything because I'm terribly lazy. Google is your friend if you want to visit the site. You're lucky I'm even backspacing for typos at this point. Anyhow, IFP stands for Independent Film Project. I've done two of these before, both with puppets. This time we got our film in on time. The idea is to create a film in 24 hours. I've been sick for nigh on a crow's age, so I didn't participate in the entire 24, so I haven't watched it yet. All I will say is that it's done in stop-motion animation, which pleases me to no end. I will do more of these. I will.

We also tossed around one idea that we didn't use that I'm bent on using. I'll use it! I will!

Hey you should go look at the naughty puppet in my etsy shop. Again, not linking...I think its off to the right if you really want to look. scroll down a little. pictures of puppets--that's my shop. I think I'm funny sometimes.

take the poll. please.

I'm not sure what this post had to do with puppetry. Hey look at the top! Its a puppet! There. worked that in. Smooth, aren't I?

I'm not a promise-keeper.

Spring Cleaning

2009-02-03T11:11:00.000-08:00

It's time to clean my workspace. It just is. Especially since Puppet Pie is my main job at this point. Not something I'm looking forward to (the cleaning--I actually look forward to Puppet Pie. I mean, c'mon...it's pie...made of puppets!)

Goals:
To find storage solutions that work.
To utilize the storage that I have--and make it work.
To create a system of organizing information. Basically, create a way to put my due projects up on some kind of board that keeps track of them....like maybe it could have some sort of spongy and yet wooden material that maybe I could stick push-pins into....hmmm

I've already created a schedule of what my work-week will look like. My goal is to make at least 9 finger puppets/week and hopefully 4 smaller hand-puppets/week. I hadn't planned on making any more smaller hand puppets, but I think its okay now that the CPSIA's mandatory testing has been postponed by one year.

We've received lots of bad financial news in the last 3 weeks...like the rest of the world. First, the hours at the theater getting drastically cut. Second, the theater is losing grants that they've already been awarded by the state (way to screw over the arts, Arizona!). And we also learned that our house is worth significantly less than it was when we purchased it 5 years ago--actually before the housing prices jumped so high (at one point it was valued at $240k). Which isn't a big deal unless we have to refinance because of the loan maturing...and we do.

I'm hopeful that everything will work out, though. I'm investigating some nerdy-sites to possibly advertise my little shop on. Sadly, failblog.com is out of the question at $600/week.

I'm feeling rather motivated. After more than a week of being sick (it's lingering still, but I think I'm on the rebound), its good to feel that motivation again!

Also, I think I'm funny for the following reasons:

Meta?

2009-01-29T08:16:00.000-08:00

I made a sandwich to be proud of.

Comicon was a success! So successful that we've decided we're going to do it again next year (Memorial Day Weekend), but next time we'll get a big space instead of the small artist's table. It will cost about 3 times as much, but I think it will be worth it.

A lot of people seemed to be interested in portrait puppets, which was nice, but I kinda don't think anything will come of it. Next year I'll make less expensive monster puppets and offer those. Oh, and next year? TOTALLY going to geek out and go all steampunked.

While there I made a myriad of finger puppets, which I'll upload to my shop throughout the week (I have a terrible sore throat/ear ache, so I'm not in a hurry to list).

Oh hey, also, I was featured on the Such Cool Stuff blog. My blogging about a blog...is that meta?

Titeres Galores

2009-01-19T19:24:00.000-08:00

DEATH awaits you all with sharp, nasty, pointy teeth!

I'm going to Comicon this week. Not the big one in San Diego, CA, no no, this is the mega-con in Mesa, Arizona. Got that stalkers? I'll be at the comicon in Mesa, AZ this week. Don't rape me or anything okay?

In preparation, I'm trying to make a lot of puppets...to be exact, a lot of really nerdy puppets. Got that nerds? I'm onto you! I know what makes you tick! It's things like Liches & Yetis! Oh yeah, I know that WOW isn't just an interjection, but a really creepy life-sucking game! I know the difference between a dwarf and a halfling! Oh yes! You shall see dorkdom at cactus-con a-plenty and it shall on be at my table! Or maybe not.

I'm actually having a bit of terribly wonderful bad luck with my shop. I can't seem to stock up my stuff. I've been making things and listing them on etsy, figuring one in the hand is worth two in the bush & in the last week I've sold 6 things on etsy! Including little pepe fleece for eyes, who has been in my shop since August of 2006! So hooray for adoption! The only downside to this is that I've got comicon coming up & am trying to get enough finger puppets for my table that I won't look ridiculous for the 4-day event with 8 puppets.

I'm going to the post office tomorrow with all of my goodies to bid them farewell. One is going to China.

So this week gives me hope. Maybe I can make it as an artist on my own-ish. I'm setting goals for myself. I'm hoping to make at least 12-14 puppets (finger) per week. I'll list at least one puppet per day & hopefully they sell. This week, so far, I've made...1, 2, 3...4, 5, 6 plus 5 is 11...plus 1 is 12....plus 3 is 15... 15! I've made fifteen puppets. I need to sell about 35 a month in order to maintain financial sanity. Well, at least financial stability.

A new beginning?

2009-01-10T13:45:00.000-08:00

Nothing like symbolizing the birth of a new era with a creature known for the destruction of all mankind. Woohooo!

Now, I'm still working as a performing puppeteer on a daily basis until the end of January, so no panicking yet. And I had planned on making these little dorky puppets & saving them for the Phoenix Comicon (where a friend of mine & I have a table) but I figured one in the hand is worth..well, you know. So I put him up on Etsy. I'll earn as much & save as much as I can, knowing that winter is on its way.

I'm trying to stay positive about all of this. (It's difficult)
The hours I'll be working make it challenging to get another job. So I've got to make a decision: do I give up what I love entirely so I can keep the car, feed the family, keep the kiddo in the awesome school? Or do I scrape by & force my family to do the same? I could trade in the car, but at this point we've lost so much money on it by keeping it for such a short amount of time. I suppose had I known, I might have leased it instead. Can't go back. Can only go forward with ooey gooey tentacles of doooooom! (And adorable googly eyes)

Right now, the hope is that I can "make it" with Etsy, for now. We'll be thankful for the time that I've had as a performer and hope that, if the theater can afford it down the line, they'll re-hire me (which is what she had said she'd like to do). I'll still be doing the slams and things around town, so I'm not going anywhere...just...ugh. yeah. Nothing quite like hearing all of that right before you're treated to lunch at a restaurant you don't really like just after seeing someone you know at the table in across from you.

Wow, was that a whole lot of emotional-vomit?

*resisting urge to crawl under a blanket*

I'll make another puppet!

End of an era

2009-01-09T15:54:00.000-08:00

So, I had my review today at work and was told that my hours will be cut back & that the theater can no longer pay me to do puppet shows due to nasty recession budget constraints. I understand. It hurts, but I understand. They still want me to teach for them 9 hours per week.

I'm going to have to figure some things out...

Happy New Year!

2009-01-04T23:34:00.000-08:00

When all is said & done I've re-sized, cut, & styled wigs, I've found an amazing costume designer, discovered new eyes, done makeup, figured out which fabric I'll never use again, resorted to using a pattern for the heads, am pleased with the results, but still wish I'd not used a pattern, sculpted 10 hands (which means I've sewn 10 hands--man I hate sewing hands), Found an incredible resource for puppet eyewear---then broke that eyewear--hmm, & I haven't had access to 5 bottles of wine for more than a month. Dude, I want my wine back.

Another puppeteer asked me if I was charging enough. I said no. I got a "you know how much other people charge, right?" Yeah, I know. I don't think I fully knew before I started putting all of this together, but I think I have a better idea now. I just never before felt like I could attain that quality of workmanship. I get it now. I think can do it. I put a listing in my etsy shop that is probably still low for most puppeteers, but it's a good step for me so I feel okay about it. (By the way Andrew's puppet pricing calculator is just a dream) If it's about right, do tell.

The puppets will be on their way hopefully this week. Me breaking the eye glasses (tonight) really put a big snafoo into that one. I'll give you full back story & details on the puppets just as soon as I can. (The 4 of you that read my blog probably already know the details, but what the hey?)

15 minutes

2008-12-18T19:59:00.000-08:00

I forgot that my puppets are in some more hockey commercials.

The snowman is by furry puppet (or so says the ad agency)

The guy that's a guy & not a monster had his eyes replaced & I couldn't be happier with them It gave me an opportunity to give them a much-needed re-focusing. I'd like to sculpt their hands a bit, but I haven't been asked/paid to do that, so I didn't.

the only actual puppeteer they used (Don Kruszka) is for the Snowman. He funneh.

Parts

2008-12-17T10:18:00.001-08:00

I loves me some bulk body parts

Hybrids are the future

2008-12-08T09:11:00.000-08:00

So a friend of mine is going to help me & do the costumes. She used to be a costumer at Disneyland, so I have a huge amount of confidence in her! She's actually a librarian/puppeteer. She's the one that's helped me with the library upstairs at the Puppet Theater. She's also developed her own shows to tour at the libraries in her circuit. (I wonder if that's like hitting the night club circuit at all...)

She showed me (in person, finally!) the two puppets she made from the Project Puppet Roly Poly pattern. I'm surprised that they're so small, but they're really nice puppets. Leave it to a seamstress to produce a friggin awesome puppet. Their costumes are all gorgeous too. She's just an amazing talent & awesome person & I wish she didn't live 45 minutes away. (I want to steal her)

It's also very tempting to just get some Project Puppet patterns & do it that way. There are two that I would need & the sizing seems about perfect for the project. Is that giving in? Is using a pattern admitting that I can't do it on my own? Do I throw away all of the awesome advice I was given & take the so very easy route? It just doesn't seem like something I should do.

I can, however, take elements from the super-rad-happy-fun-time-crazy-butt-Stacey puppets and from the super-traditional-build-a-foam-skull-&-face-then-cover-it-with-fleece puppets and make a hybrid. It will run on a charge & then use gas as a last resort. Go green or go home. Yes.

In 'real job' news. I'm learning a new show. I'll perform the show twice. It's a holiday show. Off I go to the theater to rehearse it for the very first time. Hooray!

Scolding & Stories

2008-12-04T23:36:00.000-08:00

Yeah, way to vote guys...way to vote. (I'm entirely disappointed with the views to voting ratio--poop, even the clicks to flickr are higher than voting..man...civic duty guys, civic duty.)

Ok so after a good scolding I thought you deserved a story entirely unrelated to puppetry, but related to my sense of humor.

I have, in the past, spoken of my grandfather. Not the one that carved marionettes (although he was rad), but the one that had an awesome sense of humor. We inherited his car when he passed away, it's the car that was recently murdered by a large Dodge SUV. (blasted American cars)

My grandmother collected many things, which was convenient because my grandfather was an antiques dealer & estate auctioneer. When my grandmother passed away in January of 01, we each took some turtles, some Kewpie dolls and a gnome or 3. (I should photograph them, they're really awesome) 9 months later, my grandfather passed away. He had begun seeing a woman at his Synagogue. We secretly think grandma bumped him off before they got too serious.

My grandfather had an amazing sense of humor. I was told this joke around the age of 8 or 10:
A child on Halloween is out trick-or-treating. He is dressed as a pirate. Knock, Knock, Knock. An older woman answers the door. "Oh, well look at you! Aren't you adorable? But...where are your buccaneers?" The little boy looks at her, rather confused and says "What do you mean, lady? They're under me buckin' hat."

Now, being that my grandfather is from England originally, he had an accent, which make the "me buckin' hat" really adorable. Also, anytime someone asked where he was from due to his accent, he said Oklahoma.

Anyhow, one day, several months after we lost Grandpa, I had been watching Antiques Road Show on PBS. Yes, I watch Antiques Road Show. It keeps me close to my roots, okay? So I was sitting afterward in my quiet apartment, thinking about grandpa & his profession & how people received items from their relatives that they assumed were nothing, they flipped them over to see some amazing marking & find out the item was worth more than what they imagined. Now, I didn't expect anything to be worth thousands of dollars. I didn't even expect things to be worth more than $100, but my curiosity was such that I had to go in & flip over some trinkets from Grandma & Grandpa that were on the shelf.

I looked to the Turtles. The brass turtles. I grabbed them both in my hands & flipped them over at the same time. I found not a marking of "hey I'm super-valuable" or even a sticker that said "made in Japan" instead I found a set of shiny titties & a va-jay-jay on one turtle, and a little brass weenis on the other. Secretly (on a blog that at least 14 people read--Hi Irene), just as I think Grandma took out Grandpa, I'd like to think that Grandpa & Grandma finally accepted my adulthood & hazed me from beyond.

I got my warped sense of humor from them & I love that it's something that can be inherited. Like well endowed turtles.

I should note that my grandmother, too, was a crafty lady, having crocheted a schmeckle warmer for her little brother to give to him as a gift on his wedding day. Presumably unused (Oh man I hope so), her brother be-gifted it to my dad at his wedding. Then, (Please, oh please) unused, my father gave it to my dear husband at our wedding. Thankfully just at the rehearsal dinner when only families from both sides were there to enjoy the experience. We certainly left the darn thing in its box because "presumably" doesn't mean "definitely". It was blue & had a pink bow at the top. Cute. When my brother got married, we sent it to Australia with my parents (which is where my brother lives--we didn't randomly send it to Australia for giggles) to give to him. The next boy in the family will get it & thankfully it is my brother's responisbility to make sure that happens...assuming it remains unused.

Blast this project!

2008-12-03T22:17:00.000-08:00

Here's my dilemma: I've got this project to complete by mid-December. It's a big & scary one. I can take this big scary project down two routes.

Route One:
I can go the "look, I'm a professional puppet-builder, look at how my puppets fall in line with most other puppet builders' style of building!" Not the finished look of the puppet, but the building style, the process if you will--built up with foam underneath, covered in antron fleece, made in the same way & eventually similar to looking like a "professional" puppet.

Route Two:
Or do I do the crazy-butt-stacey way of doing things where they look as though they've had a stroke (see Little Red Riding Hood or the Coyote's fan as an example).

I have been asked by some awesome people to make some awesome puppets for them & I frankly don't know if they asked me because they kinda know me, or because they like the style of puppets that I make, or if they just asked me because I'm their "best" option (i.e. they don't really know of any other puppet-builders). Seriously, if you were getting a staceyrebecca hand puppet & it was not all wonky down by the mouth & had a foam head etc, etc, would you be upset? Would you go "oh, well this is good, but where is the campy quirkiness that she's had going on for the last 6-7 years?" Would you say "Oh wow, she actually made this one look really, really nice!"

A related story: I started making WAY less craptastical puppets than I had been for puppet slams. We asked for feedback at a slam like a year ago & they said "what ever happened to that really funny puppetry group with the crappy puppets? We liked those puppets." Well..they did see them. They just saw the really funny puppetry group with the not-as-crappy puppets. So..I mean, I can't make everyone happy, that's for darn sure, but..blast, I just don't know what to do.

These puppets are going to be given to some pretty well known & rad people. Like... I think a lot of humans on the earth know who these people are. And the people receiving the puppets don't necessarily know me or my style of building, so they might be really, I dunno...unimpressed with them.

I guess I can toss a poll up about it..But you'd better hurry up & answer the poll because, dude, I should start on these like hopefully tomorrow, but in all honesty it may not happen until Friday.

Blaaarrrgh in a bucket of wet apples! Me & my "Hey, can you hold my hand while I pee for a sec?" mentality about this whole thing! This is what holds people back. Fear is a nasty old lady with a cane & she makes you eat candy that tastes like canola oil that went bad like a month ago. Yeah. Her. She also has like 15 cats.

A friend suggested I use elves. I think my next slam piece will be called "The Elves & The Puppet Maker" which will be based on a true story, except the bit about the elves existing. And stuff.

After that's all done, I get to work on my slam piece. Wheee!
I suppose we could reprise Big Benevolent Wolf....hmm...I'll have to un-cross-dress-ify him.

Ok Vote...Also, select TWO choices & tell me if you build puppets or not. Not that I can see what you said, (unless you comment)...bah, yeah, just select two for giggles, then.

On kickeries

2008-11-15T20:54:00.000-08:00

If given time with something, I am nearly convinced that I will kick it in the face with my awesome.

The lack of beginning that project is the fear that the previous statement isn't true.

What if I do fail?

What if I am not as awesome as I am in my imagined potential future stuck inside a bowl of sticky, oatmealy stagnancy?

What if I'm just incredibly awesome at organizing reference libraries? (Proven)

This causes procrastination and creation inside only blog musings with really big words like I went to some kind of school or something.

As that one news-guy's mom said: You should vote. It will make you feel real good.

All Matters of Happy

2008-11-14T21:17:00.001-08:00

I decided to take a peek at the makershed today. And to my glee, I found this photo on the front page of the makershed! Hooray!

Also, take the bleatin' poll gosh darn you and your non-poll-taking-apathy! I am a pollster & I have the need for knowledge!

Also, how the shibidiboo do you make the entire photo show up?

Imagine That.

2008-11-12T22:32:00.000-08:00

Our theater is doing an amazing project with a local school. Schoolchildren grades 2nd-8th have written stories that they think would make good puppet shows. 2 from each grade were chosen (plus one rad poem) and in a relatively short period of time (about 3.5 weeks), the shows were created & performed in the theater. The school brings their students to see their work & the 15 chosen authors are given awards this week. This has all been funded through an arts grant (of course).

I have to say I really enjoy all of the pieces. Each puppeteer has taken 3 stories to adapt. Everyone kept the voice of the child throughout each piece. Some shows are funny, some are very sweet & one makes me nearly cry each time I read the script.

And even the variety of puppets used gives a really great exposure to puppetry. It starts with a blacklight show (which brings on immediate Ooooohs from the kids) and moves into rod marionettes, rod puppets, scarf marionettes, mouth puppets, shadow puppets, overhead projector puppets (drawn & colored in rather than silhouetted shadows), and glove puppets.

It was a greuling process trying to put all of these shows together, but I'm really pleased with the result. In all, I think we kick patuchus.

I leave you with a lovely that I sent over to The Trunk Space not too long ago.

It makes me happy.

The Librarian In Me

2008-10-30T19:27:00.000-07:00

I'm working on several things at the theater, one of which is organizing, cataloging and shelving more than 250 books about puppetry that have been collected by or donated to the theater over the years.

Boy golly howdy is that a challenge. Just in trying to decide what book goes in which genre is a mighty mountain to climb. Dewey and the LOC aren't exactly my friends on this matter, either. They can disagree with eachother on a lot of things. Genres, order on the shelves, who's turn it is to do dishes this week. They're really terrible roommates. I should recommend they see a counselor.

So I ran across a book that was signed by the author (Helen Haiman Joseph) in 1938. Another book that was owned by Olga Stevens before it was donated to our theater. Another box of Tom Tichenor puppets (yes, puppets--pristine, amazing puppets, with a record and script to go along with it). All of it is just incredible.

It's really been a fascinating education into the history of puppetry. Someday I'll read at least 13 of those books.

We're all okay!

2008-10-15T21:48:00.000-07:00

Just in case you weren't one of the 87 people I called yesterday looking for sympathy, or you're not on the loveliness that is twitter, I and my family were in a minor car accident yesterday. One month & two days after Todd's accident & 5 weeks after I bought my new car. Yes, in my new car. New car. 1,620 miles on the car. My beautiful, blue, new Rav4.

It wasn't our fault, the other guy was issued a ticket, I was checked out by a doctor today & have been told to take it easy. The boy-child and husband are all okay. Todd's a little sore, but the boy is completely fine.

We were rear-ended. I was driving (my new car). I exited the freeway to make a right (north) onto 7th avenue to get to the puppet theater to pick my show up to go to the bank to deposit the check from Todd's car accident. The person behind me failed to see that a large blue object was in front of him and not moving as that large blue object was yielding to oncoming traffic. Identical to Todd's accident, just a different freeway/street.

Our bumper is smashed in as is the back door. We can't open it. Today I pulled everything out through the side..which makes me glad for the fact that it has a wonderful set of fold-down seats. I still really love my car.

My NEW car! We didn't have the plates on it yet! Or the proof of insurance in it because they didn't have time to issue it to us...because the car is so new.

If you can't tell, I'm still a touch frustrated. I still also have a screaming headache that I've had since the accident. I was hit on the side of my head, rather than the back because I was looking to the left (to yield to traffic..) at the time of the impact.

In other news, and news that makes me happy, I got a tomtom today for work. We'll see how it goes when I'm going out to schools.

clunky typing makes me happy

2008-10-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

So on average I think I've figured out that I do 7-9 shows per week. A friend asked how long this run is...This run has been going on for about 18 years, I imagine it won't stop. The show I do was commissioned by the city water department in 1990 and the city pays the theater to go to schools to teach kids about the evils of wasting water--with a rapping cactus.
Will I get bored with it?
I doubt it. It's a very challenging show. Meaning, at the beginning of each show I hope I do everything right & at the end there's always something I think "ugh" over. The only really bad part about it is the driving. Granted I haven't unloaded a show in 117 degree weather yet...I'm sure driving will have nothing on the heated load/unload next May-September.
Today I'm driving out to East Mesa...And when I say East mesa, I mean that about 12 feet past the school is the "Welcome to Mesa" sign coming in from the other direction. I know this because I accidentally drove past the school yesterday.
The beautiful thing about going way out there is that it is so amazingly quiet. you realize the only thing you're hearing are your footsteps and the wind. An occasional child in the distance or scorpion playing in the school-yard...but there just aren't cars. Its absolutely beautiful. If I didn't really despise plants and arachnids that could hurt me, I'd live out there. I do love living in the city though. If it was farm country in N. CA I might be more tempted to live far away from places with sidewalks....not that my neighborhood has sidewalks...hmm.

Anyway, I suppose this is now warning that if you buy something from me, you've given me free reign to talk about you...I always think about the people who buy my puppets. They're usually getting them for their kids or their co-workers or friends. I usually imagine these people to be teachers or people who work in IT, in just regular ole, ya know, jobs. I found out yesterday that one girl who has bought from me a few times now is a puppeteer! Yay! Not only that, she just made her Sesame Street debut (congratulations!) Anytime that sort of thing happens (i.e. encouragement by someone who does what I do) I think "oh let me at my piles of felt! I want to make more crazy-butt puppets"

So I guess, with that, I'm off to turn some polyfoam into chunks of flesh & gore for tonight's Frightfully Funny Puppet Slam.

YAR!

2008-09-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

Aye today be international talk like o' pirate day. And t'celebrate me young landlubber of a son be having his 5th birthday party and havin' T' Monkey and T' Pirate puppety show in a belated sort of piratey way.

YAR!

This here image was taken last year on International Talk Like O Pirate Day. This year I be a terribly busy girl, sailing my mighty vessel (Rav4) far and wide to the likes of places like...Chandler, Arizona to tell t'sprogs about fine causes like savin' water through the art of a rapping cactus. Aye and Yar indeed.

problems solved!

2008-09-12T19:00:00.000-07:00

Nothing like solving today's problems by adding problems.

My husband left a message during my 2nd show saying he had been in a car accident. It was true, he had been. He was rear-ended as he was exiting from the freeway and turning right. At that right-hand turn you have to yield. He yielded. Apparently the guy in the dodge SUV behind his small suzuki esteem didn't think either one of them should have yielded.

He is OK. He feels like he was hit by a car...a large SUV to be exact...

The force smashed in the back of our car several feet. The rear bumper now brushes against the back tire. The two back seats are bowed out so there is a goodly gap where the seats are separated for folding-down-purposes. The back passenger door won't close, the back driver's side door won't open. The back hatch won't even think of opening. The trunk area is raised up a good foot and a half. The force of Todd's body hitting the seat after he had been jolted broke his driver's seat. It's now permanently reclining. He had just gone grocery shopping (!) and picked up a 5-gallon jug of water that had been resting in the front-passenger seat. The contents were afterwards covering todd and the rest of the car. The milk in the back was leaking out...we took the jug out later and it had been cut in half with the force. not that its all that difficult to cut a milk jug in half, but yah...so our car was peeing milk the whole way home.

The SUV didn't even break a headlight. Just minor scratches.

The car was very sentimental to both of us. My grandfather died in it. He had a heart-attack while driving. (He had come to a stop & his foot fell off the brake, a semi-truck driver saw him and parked his truck in front of grandpa's car so it would only gently hit the truck. A nurse was in the car behind the Semi.) He died September 13th, 2001. Tomorrow is the 7-year-anniversary. I've always felt very comforted anytime I thought about it. In fact, when I got the new car I told Todd to take good care of my grandpa's car and said that he had to use the moon-roof for me. We both respect and honor it very much. He was an amazing man. I got a lot of my sense of humor from him. (dirty old...) One of the first things Todd said to me was "why did he have to hit that car...out of every car in the world, that one should have been kept safe" So yeah, it's hard on both of us.

It's sitting in our driveway. I'll take the "Elkhorn Country Club" plate-holder off before they tow it away and I'll put it on my new car. I also think I have his original license plate somewhere. It was personalized with his and my grandmother's initials.

We'll say goodbye to the car after 7 years. It has kept us safe. That's the most important thing.

First logistical challenges

2008-09-11T21:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm doing the map-questing of my FOUR shows tomorrow (2 schools)....

The show I do is 1 hour long.

Challenge one:
One show booked at 8:45am and one right after at the same school is booked at 9:30am--giving me 45 minutes to do the first show and reset the stage for the second show. (I can probably cut down on post-show questions--I'll have to.)

It takes me 45 minutes from the time at which I arrive to the point at which I can do a show.
It takes me roughly 30-45 minutes to tear down/load my car, before I am on the road again. If I start a show at 9:30, I have been leaving the school's parking lot at 11:00, sometimes 11:15am.

I have a third show scheduled at another school at 12:00pm. That means I need to arrive at 11:15 in order to check in, unload, and set up before I can do the show.

Challenge two:
The two schools are 25 miles away from each other on busy freeways during a Friday afternoon lunch-hour rush. Mapquest's estimated travel time: 29 minutes.

I have my fourth show scheduled at the same school at 1pm, meaning I'll get out of there at 2:45.

Challenge three:
I'd like to eat. Preferably between shows two and three--with the 15 minute gap & 30 minutes of travel time.

Thankfully I'm leaving from my house and not the theater which cuts down on the day's total travel time, however I'll still be going 83 miles tomorrow, round-trip. It's okay, I love my new car. I also just got an ipod jack so I can listen to my ipod in my new car.

I'm going to start map-questing two-schools days as soon as I find out about them to ensure that the person booking the shows gives me enough time to travel between the two. And maybe eat as well.

Smoothing out.

2008-09-10T11:56:00.000-07:00

Rav4, Blue, 3 rows of seats, fits my show, completely AWESOME. And it drives like a car. AND it has tinted windows (a must in AZ) AND its awesome AND that has nothing to do with puppetry...except that I did my first four shows monday and yesterday. let's just say the 2nd one went better than the first one....a lot better. Let's also say that I don't like hooded shows due to bad lighting and not being able to find my foot-switch for music cues. Let's also say that I almost fell on my face due to poor balance.

2nd day went well, though. like..I'm really pretty darn amazing kind of well. which means today i fail! I'll go do show #5 in a bit here.

It's becoming a bad stress

2008-09-07T22:30:00.001-07:00

So we had our breakfast today with a friend who used to sell Hondas and Chevrolets. When he sold Chevys he'd send his friends over to buy Hondas. He's a Honda advocate--which is good--from what I hear, everyone who owns a Honda is a Honda advocate.

So basically I was unconvinced that I should get a Honda...we spent some more time with it in the afternoon (friend went with since he's a former salesman--really, you need one of those if you shop for a car). Lateron, after a good long test-drive, I was more comfortable & decided that if they can get the car for me in green, then it's mine. They bend over backwards out their bungles to try to find me a green car--they can't get it today, so we can't sign paperwork, but they gave me a loaner so I could go to work tomorrow with the new car (otherwise I'd borrow one from Gwen or Nancy). Sweet, so I take it down to the theater to get a final rehearsal in and then--much later than I wanted to--loaded up the show. It barely fits. just barely. Like..there's no way I can use this car for the next however many years I'm going to be doing this show & still be a sane human being. The playboard for other shows won't fit down the center and blah blah STRESS.

So after these guys have bent over backwards for me I get to say "oh hey, you know that green one that you had to get from another dealership? yeah that's not going to work for me, but thanks!"

I ended up calling our salesman on his cell phone at 10:30 at night to explain the predicament. I also offered that if he can somehow get me into a RAV4, then that'd be ideal. I will make them cookies. Apparently the dealerships all in a row on Camelback are owned by the same guy, so they can get a car from the other dealership for me. But they don't get as many points? or something. I'm not sure. Either way, I can hopefully get into the Rav4 by tomorrow night? if not by tuesday. Dag nabbit I feel like a dweeb.

It's a good stress, right?

2008-09-06T22:41:00.000-07:00

My first show is Monday.

I've been car-shopping all weekend.

I think I'll do okay for the first show. I worry nonetheless.

I'm pretty darn stressed out, but I look at the reasons & think Ok, this is because life is good, right? Still, stress is there. (I need to get a car by Monday, by the way.)

Can't decide between a pre-owned Rav4 (Toyota) with 11,000miles (bottom of the line, but drives like a car & has great space inside) and a CR-V (Honda) with 17,000miles (higher model, higher price, drives more like an SUV--but not much more--and is just in general, prettier.

Ok just so everyone can tell me what I should do (please tell me--even if I don't know you or you don't care--just tell me)

Rav4 is good for the: Driveability, cargo area is flat (a plus when loading in puppet stages/boxes) 11,000 miles, back door opens from the side (not sure if/why that's good or bad), better gas mileage by 2mpg (which gives you a free gallon of gas per tank in comparison), Airflow of the A/C is better in the backseats (I have an almost-5-yr-old), parking break is in a better location for me (I like them where a passenger can use it in an emergency), better Consumer Reports rating from the 07 Rav4, Slightly more spacious than a CR-V, it was a reposessed car--so it's practically new (cupholders are in plastic). (the 2007 Rav4 was rated the least depreciated vehicle in its class by someone--not kelly blue book.) Rav4 wins in the cool "push a button and it makes things open/close" category--their 'extra' glove box is pretty cool like that.

CRV is good for the: Exterior looks are better than a rav4 (let's face it , that's important), Cargo area is easy to fold back, mileage is 17,000, It's a certified pre-owned, which means it comes with an extended warranty, back door opens up like a hatch-back (again, not sure which is better), Hondas don't depreciate--dude..really, they don't--ever, it's all "upgraded" n' stuff, it has an mp3 player BUILT INTO THE CAR! (it records your cd's onto a chip in the car & you play them that way...WOW), Its light blue (better than the gold option for the Rav4 as I am not yet 65), gear shift location is pretty cool, although it will take getting used to, kelly blue book is higher on this model by about $3,000...the price we buy it for is going to be close to the Rav4, but its a car that's worth more...and then there's the cupholders. CR-V wins in the cupholder department,

Salesmen: Have been awesome at both places, however the girl that showed us the Rav4 was really, really nice. If its a matter of people to give my $ to, she'd win. Honestly, to the point that if we don't buy the car from her, I'm going to make her cookies. super-uber no-pressure. (The nice folks at the Ford dealership lost the no-pressure round of Sell Todd & Stacey A Car.)

Neither car comes in green. This makes me sad. Very sad indeed.

Ok, so if you don't mind, please leave me your opinion. pretty please. Thank you.

Vote because you love me

2008-09-03T13:11:00.001-07:00

Ok, apparently it's not obvious to everyone reading the blog that I have a poll. That you can vote on. Unless its the same 14 people coming back to visit the blog to find out if there's a new poll...I'm just sayin'. You can also choose more than one option when you vote. its amazing.

So I'm starting to pick the show up little-by-little. Very little. Every time I pick up a puppet to perform for an audience of nobody I transform into a human ball of nervous energy that can't settle. And then heaven forbid I need to do the show for the director--or anyone else in the theater! So they sit there & it's just some puppets, a solitary folding chair and me...ready to rap my little heart out.

It was brought up to me that as long as the music isn't going that I can rap okay, but if you add a beat then I'm lost. This I knew. Need not point out--thanks. So then I was advised to tap my foot to the beat. Its helping a little, but let's think about this....when you hear ragtime, or polkas, or some big band you have a tendency to want to tap your feet....but rap? Do you tap your feet to rap? Not so much--so it's either sound like a fool or look like a fool. Which I should be used to already. I am somewhat of a dingus. (Somehow the word dingus is in my web-browser's dictionary--that makes me happy.)

Ok so this is where I make excuses for my bad puppetry skills:
I'm using a style of puppet that I've never performed with before(which is neat!). They're mostly table-top rod puppets. They're controlled by a rod going through the back of their head or body with a string and elastic for the mouth control (all but one anyway). So first off, I need to keep my derned feet on the playboard. Not something I've ever had to worry about before. Second, I'm so used to moving a puppet's mouth with syllables in a word that I am moving my puppet's body with every syllable which is terribly distracting and uncool. I'm also doing 4 characters in one show..not something I've ever done. I'm usually only one or two characters in a show and they're very seldomly on stage together, so I've never had to worry about vocal distinction in characters. I also work with a male puppeteer most of the time, so I'm never really doing any boy-parts. So in this show 3 of the characters are boys. OY VEY!

My first two shows are Monday, back0-to-back. So today is Wednesday. I have--not that long. Keep your fingers crossed, people. Otherwise some first graders at an elementary school in Chandler are going to be very disappointed.

So I'm thinking about the next puppet fest & what kinds of workshops I'm going to sign up for. I'm thinking a manipulation workshop for sure, and probably a vocal one as well.

Growing in your artform is sometimes a very difficult thing.
(Also, I wish people wouldn't smoke in the basement--just sayin')

No really, vote over there...with the poll.

2008-08-31T18:55:00.000-07:00

The day after I wrote the last post, the director at the theater where I work called and asked me if I want to go full-time with them as a puppeteer.

Sadly, one of our puppeteers is leaving us, but the good news is that he gets to support his wife and see her during her last semester of her Master's program. Hopefully they'll come back when she's finished and life will return to normal.

In the meantime, the theater is in need of a puppeteer for their touring shows in schools. I've been asked to alleviate the burden of the school-year shows while they either find a replacement (they really need a male puppeteer) or our puppeteer comes back to us. Honestly, his return would be ideal. He's a very good puppeteer & he brings a bit of silly sanity along with him.

So, that leaves me learning one of the most difficult shows the theater does. I was told this was one of the most difficult shows right off the bat. Thankfully I had almost a full 2 weeks to learn it. I'm down to having a week exactly.

It's about water conservation. I'm getting the part with the rapping cactus (yes) down pretty okay--which is really not my strong suit. I'm the clumsiest, whitest, most awkward rapper that ever fell over her own two feet. No really, I'm friggin' white. I have barely any rhythm at all. And this is just how bad it is...I can do the rap kind-of okay..I mean..I'm getting it---but then you put a beat behind me and I'm incredibly lost and have no idea what syllable to put emphasis on. I can hardly clap to when you're happy and you know it let alone rap. And as much as I'm stumbling in my attempt at showing you how inept I am at rapping--imagine my rapping--it's worse.

So now that I've convinced you that I'm not qualified, you will fully understand my fears for memorizing this show (and the rap plus 2 songs) that this show entails.

This job also is going to require that we become a 2-car family--which will be nice, since currently I drive 3 hours every day in a 10 mile radius of my home. I did also request that instead of doing 40 hours, that I only do 32 per week. That will give me one day out of the week to still (hopefully) create.

Anyone have any advice on shopping for hatchbacks/wagons/minivans?

Two days in a row? I'm craaazy.

2008-08-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

No really, I'm crazy. I've been told...by people.

I wanted to share some of the puppets that I made recently. Hooray! I'm really excited to love finger puppets again. For awhile I was feeling as though that was a sub-par type of puppet to make. Now, honestly, I think--for me--it's better. I'm a tiny girl and I like tiny things. I'm embracing just how awesome something little and made of felt can be. I think I struggle with believing this is a skill anyone can do (which I still mostly believe) and they can make it look the same if not better than what I do. And I see tons of handmade artful finger puppets that go beyond the flat"oh look I'm a monster with one eye, Whooohoo!" that I see a lot of. (No offense if you make those--the world needs that kind of puppet as well.) So maybe not everyone can make anthropomorphic garbage cans and dapper mustachioed bacon. Maybe it takes my odd little brain to come up with a happy little piece of feminine hygiene, emo pancakes, or conjoined bunnies. And don't worry, I know, the over-use of bacon is waning on all of us, however I've been doing bacon for years now and I'm not about to give it up because its gone all mainstream. I commit to making my bacon weirder and googley-eyed-er than any other bacon out there. I pledge this to you, America. (Sorry, Canada.)
Anyway, enough with the talking words.

Ok so because blogger seems to lack the wonderful formatting previewerage that would be so helpful in times like this...I'll say what the puppet is, and you can guess which title goes with which puppet. It will be a great challenge. Alright here we go.
*Mustachioed Rain Cloud....see, I didn't realize the felt was green until I got it into better lighting....when it was finished. Ah well, acid rain it is.
*Mustachioed bacon. I actually made this puppet on the plane going into Missouri. I just haven't photographed it until now. I really like it. A lot. I think this is one that will stay in my own personal collection.
*Rabbit of Makershed fame. Yet another bunny that I made back in May at the Maker Faire in San Fran (I can call it San Fran because I'm native to California and it makes me sound cool). I'll remind you now that the kits are available at the makershed online. I hand wound each spool of thread that's in those kits (No really, I did). Indie kit all the way, baby! Support the indie artist! Or don't, it's cool. (I can say indie because I'm on the tail end of gen-x and it makes me sound cool.)
*Googly Eyed Strawberry. I was at my friend's house while she was making dough on Saturday and she gave me a pile of felt, a needle, thread and scissors. Also she gave me a straw for my drink. Wendy's failed. This (and the acid rain) came out of the felt. With my help.

Side story: our children (age 4--but collective age of 8, so they should have known better!) were hanging out in her backyard unsupervised, because really, what harm can two four-year-olds do to a backyard with a playhouse and a swing-set? Let me answer: They threw rocks over my friend's fence, apparently hitting her car, putting dings in the paint as well as breaking the windshield. That's right, my son is a vandal. Hooligan. (I feel terrible about that, by the way.) When asked if there were things on the other side of the fence that could get broken, his response was, "No. We couldn't see what was on the other side of the fence."
So you know how when you go out of a baby's line of vision, they freak out because to them you don't exist anymore? Apparently fences have the same effect on four-year-olds.

Ok, finally I have to tell you about an artist whom I stumbled across today on Etsy. His name is Dean Kendrick and he does amazing shadow boxes and has some beautiful hand-drawn and stop-motion animation on his website. I dig.

dude, don't forget to vote.

2008-08-24T10:55:00.000-07:00

I went to New York for 5 days and this is the only proof that I have that I was ever there. It's me and Mr. Craig Hunter from Cubistliterature. We were in Red Hook, Brooklyn, which is really pretty darn awesome. Anytime I visit Brooklyn, it makes me wish I lived there. Granted, it's pretty darn smelly...I couldn't quite get over that part. And there are many other reasons I'm glad I live where I live, but for the social aspect I wish I lived there. Craig and I went out to lunch & it was lovely.

I stayed with Jen from Sweetestpea and Goobeetsa from Goobeetsa while I was out there. They were such kind hosts! Their apartment, the largest in Brooklyn, is adorable! They're also both really great artists.

The improv festival prior to my goings-outs-to-lunch went pretty well. Our show was okay, but eh, it's improv--at a marathon-style festival, sometimes you're not going to have your best show. I totally missed Josh and Tamra's improvised puppet show! I caught bits and pieces of another improvised puppet show out there that was done with Sunny puppets...The humor was there, but the puppetry made my tummy feel icky. Like..ugh. eating words, no focus (really how much can you get out of a Sunny puppet anyway?). standing there looking at the ceiling, as talking heads and biting words. It was not done by puppeteers...

Am I being harsh? Of course I am! If an improviser watches non-improvisers do improv--and do it badly-- they cringe and ask why in the world would someone just pick-up and try to do an art-form without any training? You're telling people that that's what improv is? You're lying to people and they're just believing you. You're hurting the artform! You must hate your audience and improv! Go take a workshop, foo'! (Which I hear a lot from improvisers) So yeah, I don't feel bad calling improvisers out on botching another performance art. Yah--eat it. With a spoon.

I really really want to get this longform puppetry troupe up and running. I want it to be GOOD improvised puppetry! Not the stacey-drunk-em-ups style, but involve thoughtfully good scenes. It will happen. I hope.

All summer my creating of things has been down a lot. I'm driving 2.5 hours every day, which eats into creating...a lot. I listed a puppet on Etsy that I made in June..which weirdly helps put the creative bug back into me. I finished two finger puppets this morning. My son is helping me price things. "$1,000 for a raincloud." DEAL. "$20 for a raincloud getting a strawberry fresh. $13 for a raincloud lifting a car up." I think I need a better agent. Prices are only going down at this point. Hopefully I'll take pictures of the $.02 puppets today and get them posted to flickr so your magical eyes can see my magical puppets. Magical.

A 2nd bird today has just hit my dining-room window.

Del Close Marathon

2008-08-05T10:07:00.000-07:00

If you plan to stalk me, go to New York this weekend. I'll be performing with Apollo 12 at the Del Close Marathon (Improv festival) on Saturday at 4pm at the Hudson Guild Theater. This will be my 2nd trip to New York. It will be amazing.

If you do stalk me, please tackle me after the show. (I want to be tackled to the ground. Do it, I'll give you a nickel.) I would be very sad to find out that someone I know came and they didn't tackle me afterwards.

I'm hoping to get over to the marionette theater to see--marionettes. If I do, I'll have hit the two oldest puppet theaters on both coasts in one summer. Is it a little bit sad that I even know that? Or is it more sad that I feel as though it's an accomplishment. *Pushes up nerd-glasses*

We had our Puppet Slam this last weekend & my cohort finished the script for me. He did a great job, too. So our Friday show had a great crowd as usual, and the Saturday show had a larger, but quieter crowd, as usual. Saturday crowds are weird.

Before the show I was able to fix Little Red Riding Hood's arms up in a really cool way Nick Barone taught at the workshop. It emphasized how different her arms are in proportion, but it makes it so they're not all floppy-floppy at the side. (Note the before shot to the right & after below.) Here, when I've been thinking almost every arm like this has some sort of armature in it, all it took was some soft-sculpture techniques. Yay that!

Goal: This time next year I will have a set of human puppets for shows that I will have spent a goodly amount of time constructing. (Meaning not 4 puppets in 5 days as per the usual)

Hold me to it, blog-world.

8 posts worth of posting.

2008-07-28T01:08:00.000-07:00

So the few of you that check in on me every now and again are probably sick of seeing the same bit about the silly rhinos. Sorry about that. And then again, who am I writing for, you or me? Probably more me, otherwise I wouldn't do it. But hey, at least when I get the bug in me to write, I give you a week's worth of reading.

On the puppetry front I went to PuppetFest Midwest and made the most amazing puppet I've ever made. Keep in mind that I have had a child. The child did not have yellow eyes and I did not use The Ultimate non-toxic contact cement to make him. I took Nick Barone's workshop. Yay for that whole shin-dig! Very patient and willing to put up with attention-loving kids like me. I'll post photos soon. I haven't quite finished his arms. I'm afraid I was too eager to slap them on and sewed one to the body a bit early (before I finished the 2nd one--bad call). So I've realized the fallacy in this and now I'm kind-of sad to take the other arm off, fearing that I'll leave a big-ole frasty mark on his side. I'm very impatient. I need to get over that.

The workshop was only half of the loveliness that was Puppetfest Midwest. I also got to know quite a few amazing puppeteers. Can I be thrilled that this is what I do? I make friggin puppets and I work at a friggin puppet theater. I meet and get to talk with heroes of puppetry. I do shows for grown-ups and I'm basically doing what I wanted to do when I was 5. Nobody grows up and does what they wanted to do when they were 5. If you challenge me then you are a liar. You didn't want to grow up and be a grown-up. When you were 5 you wanted to be a Snork and you know it.

So while at the festival I had forgotten that I signed up for something called Bits & Pieces. Its a late night show that's basically an open-mic night. I had brought a handful of finger puppets (only because they were in my sewing bag) & I grabbed a pig & a hamburger before I left--very last minute, too--just in case I wanted to sign up once I got there. I saw my name on the list when I arrived & freaked out a little. I hadn't prepared a darn thing. Nick was in charge of the evening performances & wouldn't take my name off of the list. Thankfully I had wonderful people in my life (Thank you Drew Allison) who made sure I had 3 glasses of wine in about 30 minutes before I went on. I don't drink terribly often. Drew was, by the way, the first person to actually get me drunk. Enabler. So because I had prepared nothing, I knew I'd be improvising.

A word on improvisational theater. (Yes, I spelled theater with an ER, not RE--eat it.) Doing a show with multiple people is one thing. The fewer people you have in your show, the more "on" you need to be. A two-person show is intimidating to me. It can be for a lot of people. In fact, I'd say it is for a lot of people. You just have to be flat out on top of your game. I had no other experienced improvisers upon whom I could force to perform with me. I have never before done a one-person improv show. I had no one to bounce ideas off of but my forced-split-personality self.

I also have never done a solo puppet show. Also an intimidating thing for me. I'm sure most puppeteers are completely comfortable with such an idea. But if my ship is sinking, I want someone to hug on the way down.

So I mustered up my gut (aka Drunkie McDrunkicide) and went on with just me, two hand puppets and a fist-full of finger puppets. The suggestion was singing sausage. I do longform, by the way, so it was one continual scene and nothing jokey-gamey-gimmicky. I honestly think I did a very good job with it! I had many, many compliments post-show. People laughed about when I thought they should, and I had fun (which is the ultimate importance). I'm sure it was a mixture of "hey I think she's funny" and "hey look at Drunkie." But even that bit of a mixture is okay with me. Causes me to really want to kick some Bits & Pieces tuchus if I'm able to go next year.

I came back to a busy Crafty Burrito week & even more puppetry. Last weekend I participated in the 48-hour Film Challenge, sponsored by IFP & the Phoenix Film Festival. We were 2 hours late turning in our film due to some technical problems. Ah well. we had a lot of fun making it. We used paper puppets. Something I'd never done before & thought it would be easier than it was, and then it ended up being easier than I'd been making it after lots of failed attempts at both moving eyes & mouths from flat paper. I didn't have too many materials or tools available to me and we made more than 20 puppets for the 3 minute film. I mean, that alone we should be proud of. We'll screen it on Thursday for a $10 a ticket. That's right, it's a STEAL!

I have a puppet slam coming up next weekend. For anyone in the area who wishes to go, its $8 if you call & pay in advance & $10 at the door.It should prove to be an okay slam. Its called the Sweaty Butt Puppet Slam. Being in Phoenix, I can attest to the sweaty buttification. I've not finished writing our piece yet. bad, isn't it? I suppose I'm just not married to the idea, so its hard to get behind it. I feel like maybe the premise has been over-done & will cause the show to be predictable, which automatically makes things boring--for me. And with all of the creative juices flowing out of me so much in such a short amount of time (festival followed by 48 hour challenge), it's just difficult to make myself write something that I can't get fully behind. I feel some sort of creative stifleifity going on and I'm not a fan. Boo.

I'm hoping that getting back into Etsy a bit can cure that. I haven't made anything new (excepting a head of lettuce at the festival which someone wanted to buy before I cut the final thread--that was a nice feeling.) But I have been listing some things I'd already made. I actually sold 4 things just this week, so that's really exciting. One being Gloria, my zombie. One of those things that I question whether or not I'm making puppets the "right way" and rethinking how much my labor is worth when I employ only a certain set of skills. (I actually went back and changed that sentence from using the 2nd person (You question, you're making, your labor, etc) and decided to own those gross feelings as my own.) Anyway, just being in a general funk. Everyone goes there, and it's not a bad place to be in..it's just a place. So anyway, I'm hopefully coming out of that funk. I'm hoping once swim lessons are over in the child-boy's life, that I can get back to making things hard. I can't see it not happening.

(The photo is of a puppet I made for an awesome kid named Elliott who designed the puppet all by his lonesome.)

PuppetFest Midwest Tomorrow!

2008-07-07T13:14:00.000-07:00

I leave tomorrow bright and early for PuppetFest Midwest in Trenton, Missouri! I was awarded a scholarship & I plan to use it to the fullest! This festival sneaked up on me. ("Sneaked up" doesn't sound correct..but really it is.) I think I was so excited about the release of the video this week (Yesterday it was a feature story on yahoo! YAY!) that I completely forgot about packing. So today is all about getting my ducks in a row before I leave!

Things I doubt you care about: Swim lessons with the boy-child are going well. If I were a newspaper I'd say something about them going swimmingly. Which causes me to ask why newspapers are still using puns after at least 100 years of readers groaning at them in agony.

He also got into the school we were hoping for! He'll actually be in the kindergarten classroom this year. They stay there until they're about age 7 because it's a hippie-school. How hippie you ask? The 3rd graders are in charge of taking care of the farm animals. They encourage the kids to jump off of the swings, catch frogs, and climb trees. (As long as the tree doesn't bear fruit.) They keep the same teacher from the 1st-8th grade. They spend a lot of time outside while they learn. They all learn to play instruments & paint. They make stilts, learn how to felt, and put on plays. What's even cooler? Puppetry is huge at this school! HUZZAH! (That's a dork's way of saying amen.)

This is where I preach:
Encouraging children to move while they learn and using music to teach math, and art to teach science, and dance to teach language causes children to learn effectively. It's well-rounded and it makes learning far more fun than sitting at a desk. Stupid desks.

Preaching done. Look at a picture of rhinos to flush your brain.

This is it!

2008-06-27T23:08:00.000-07:00

So....this is what I worked on that was all super-secret. Released mere moments ago (I was the 12th view!) and YAY!

For those of you who don't know, it's a Canadian band called the Barenaked Ladies and they're not bare or naked...or ladies. But they do sing some pretty rad music & they released a children's album called Snacktime. I got to go to Chicago in a fancy airplane and ride in a fancy car to a fancy apartment in Boy's Town. Then I got to ride a fancy train and a fancy bus to help finish the puppets up, then I got to sit under a fancy table & play with puppets for 19 fancy hours! FANCY! (Thank you Moxie, for bringing that word back to the forefront of my life)

One of the most wonderful experiences! I loved every minute! I got to work with some amazing puppeteers, as well! WOW. Noah Ginex is the man responsible for most everything you see on screen. From construction and animation to editing. He had a good set of folks around him that helped him work on a fairly tight budget (when it comes to puppets) and an even tighter schedule to make it work.

I could go on for ages. I won't.

This wasn't it....But it's Exciting!!!

2008-06-23T22:19:00.000-07:00

The big thing I was awaiting wasn't this, but this is one thing I was awaiting! My finger puppet kits have arrived at the Maker Shed! (Craft: & Make: Magazine's online store)

They said that the kit is by Stacey Rebecca...implying that either I have no last name or that Rebecca is my last name. I think people have a problem with my name. Poor Stacy Wolf. I'm not sure if I should ask them to fix it. I'm just kind-of excited that I have a product ID number. Although the free-art non-consumer in me is saddened by that...although the desire to pay mortgages and eat food and send my child to school is again excited about it. Hooray consumerism!

So go buy my hard work from someone else! And then they'll buy my hard work from ME! Hooray for the man!

Very Little Time

2008-06-23T00:24:00.000-07:00

The story of having "no time" continues, however if you look at my facebook profile, it seems as though I've found a lot of time for scramble. (a game like boggle) Anyway, it feels like I don't have much time. I possibly procrastinate slightly when I do. However it being midnight-thirty, I'll accept that this is time I can properly waste.

I did get to do a workshop in Gilbert for teens. They had 12 sign up, but only 6 girls came. They were a quiet, but fun group. Wow, some of them got really creative. I love seeing that! Teenagers don't get to play very often. Puppetry is entirely a way to get them to act like idiots--I mean, children.

I've been anxiously awaiting the release of that super-secret project. There has been an announcement on a certain website saying that it would be released at the end of the week. Until then, I play Scramble.

On Friday I had a show that started at 10:30pm (insane), but prior to that, I attended the Cancer Fandango, an event that raised money to help a local improviser pay for his cancer-bills. Lovely insurance doesn't pay for medication, so at 29, Alexander has to worry about debt, cancer, chemotherapy, seizures, boredom, and everything else that goes along with having cancer. Well boo that I say! If you'd like to donate to help an awesome guy out, give him money. Give him all of...or at least some of your money. If a dollar is all you give, then that's one less dollar he has to worry about. Seriously. Or youse can use your computer for the folding at home dealio. (yes, grammar is my strong suit.) You can download that via the linkiedoodle under "give him money."

The next day at the same venue we screened our *cough* award-winning film, Big Benevolent Wolf. First with sound, second with live commentary from the directors. We ACTUALLY had people that enjoyed their evening. I hope it's because a couple that spins plates came on after us. No naked magician last night, but one can only ask for so much.

That's all for now. When the magical future secret project gets released, I'll pee my pants and then announce it here. Our guess is within the next few days.

I leave you with a photo that is near and dear to my heart. You can guess where he was.

Caution: Spoilers

2008-06-03T00:06:00.001-07:00

This is Larry Bignose. The Larry on the left was created by a 9-year-old boy who shall remain nameless for awesome's sake. The Larry on the right was adapted to puppet by me. I have had the extremely good pleasure of adapting four more of his designs into finger puppets. Keeping in mind that I'm plunking these guys down into under 3" of felt, it's not exactly easy. Larry's biggest challenges were in making his hands and his hat. I made the hat separately, and now I think I should have made it bigger...at least the brim. To get the full-on excitement of the hat, you'd have to look at the side view. Nothing will ever be perfect, right? If you know the recipient of this puppet...SHHHH.

We got home last night to find nothing stolen. I'm only mildly disappointed, although I know many of you are very busy with the end of the school-year and all. The only thing missing was our mail, but we knew about that so it doesn't count. A good friend stopped by to get our mail for us while we were out of town & we went by his place on our way home to pick it up. We only had him get our mail after hearing that another friend got a scholarship to PuppetFest Midwest in Trenton, MO* this summer. I also applied for a scholarship, so I was really anxious to find out. I called Bill to see if the letter was there and if so, in what type of envelope, and whether or not it was thick, etc. I had him open it over the phone and read it to me. I got the scholarship! Hooray!

For those of you who don't know, puppet festivals (unlike a lot of improv festivals) cost several hundreds of dollars just to attend. There's no taking just one workshop or going to just one show. It's either all or nothing. So with transportation, I think it bumped this festival up over $1,000 for me...which is completely not-doable. They scholarship pays for the festival, room and board for the week and the workshops. I have to cover transportation, but I can do that!

I only get one real week out of the year to learn from other people and this is it. This festival is unlike a lot of others, in that it offers a full week of classes with only one instructor (most festivals offer that as an option, but not as the only option). And then there are shows in the evenings, and dinners together. You stay in dorm rooms with other puppeteers and it's pretty okay to geek out over something like an arm-rod or a ladder stitch. For my some of my other crafting friends, consider it like going to the bead store with someone who knows what a crimping thingie-doodle is, or to a knitting store where they have bamboo fiber to spin. The nice thing is that all craftsmen are brought together under the love of a dremel. (yes..all)

I still can't believe Maker Faire was only a month ago and that the music video was only 2 and a half weeks ago? wow. A lot has happened recently. Thankfully it's not going to slow down! I have a workshop that I'll give at a Library toward the end of June, and lots of puppets I'm making for people who want puppets. And not to mention that I get to go on vacation next weekend for 8 days at the beach starting next weekend. And thrown in there is Disneyland! Yay!

*Trenton claims to be the world's largest producer of Vienna sausages. World..You have NO idea! None! I will gain 47 pounds in sausages. 45% of those pounds will be sodium. Oh sweet baby hot dogs that come in a can, you will be in my belly. Soon.

Boo for dead batteries

2008-05-31T15:09:00.000-07:00

I'm in California again, but this time on vacation. Hooray! Yesterday we headed into Oakland to visit Children's Fairyland, a small theme-park built in 1950 (pre-Disneyland). They house the oldest continuously running puppet theater in the country. It's full of adorably dated rides and sets and wonderfully updated rides and sets. This was the place that I saw my very first puppet show in either 81 or 82. This was also the place the left me terrified of twisty slides for the rest of my life. My shoe got caught in the tower. The dreaded tower of doom. This dreaded tower of doom is the tower to which they send the kids under 4 years of age because they're too little to go down the big-kid dragon slide of not-getting-your-shoe-stuck.

So at one point we had to take the wee one to the wee-wee room & I saw that the side door was open to the puppet theater...a Yoda poster hung on the wall inside (adorable since Frank Oz used to work there). I saw a man eating a hot-pocket (ohhh delicious hot pockets...how I miss your cheese-goo) & I decided to muster my woman-balls and ask if he was the resident puppeteer. Indeed it was puppeteer, Randal Metz. He invited me in and we talked about puppetry and building and marionettes and shows and well..puppetry for a good hour until it was time for him to start the show. We geeked out so hard that Todd & the boy-child had to leave to do less geeky things.

Their audio is all prerecorded, so he invited me to watch the show from backstage if I wanted to. I wanted to. I brought my mom back (she adores puppets) & we watched Pinocchio. It was an interesting thing to watch. His partner for the show had only done the show with him 3 times, so she was fairly fresh. But the idea of having prerecorded dialog and music meant that he could give her instructions during the show without missing a beat. He also carried on a fairly uninterrupted conversation with us during the show without missing things. It's so ingrained.

I've stolen some video from etsy seller, headexplodie, for you. Go buy stuff from her out of guilt for having watched stolen video.

Then we got to play with the puppets. That was good fun! Lewis Mahlmann made the puppets years and years ago (I don't want to be specific because I don't remember exactly, but Randal did tell me) and some of the costumes (in the show) were made by Frances Oznowicz. It was really an awesome theater to visit. And the park is pretty lovely as well. It's getting refurbished and there is fresh paint everywhere! (Even on the boy's shirt...whoopsiedoodle)

We head back into town tomorrow morning, so if you plan on stealing something from my house, now is the time.

It's a long one...sorry.

2008-05-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

This month has been insane! Maker Faire, Mother's Day, last month of teaching, first trip to Chicago, music video, 8-year anniversary and Hobo Soup! Crazy.

I've been meaning to post about the Maker Faire since it happened! I asked permission to use this photo, but for some reason its not uploading to Blogger or downloading to my computer. SO, you'll have to click the link to see me in action at the Maker Faire. I was a very busy girl. I auditioned for Make:TV and did a demo/talk on the Craft:magazine stage and spent hours upon hours showing kids and grown-ups alike how to backstitch and whip-stitch their way into a finger puppet.
See that pile of puppets there on the workbench? Four of them were taken right out from under my nose! Isn't that terrible? If I believed in karma I'd say it'd one day bite them in the tuchus, but since I don't, they'll probably just play with the puppets for a little while, and enjoy the fact that they stole my hard work without me ever noticing. I guess it affirms that people like what I do. It also affirms that the bunny & carrot set are more popular than the steak & dog set, as the bunny/carrot set were swiped twice. Someone also took a Sakura tool-belt full of awesome pens & markers AND a few puppets, but at least I was off doing something else so it was left unattended. That's enough lamenting, I suppose. Lesson learned: Trust no one.

The trip to Toronto was postponed, but I really didn't mind because it meant that I could spend Mother's Day at home with my family. It's also always nice to stay in Phoenix when it's not roasting-hot outside. I'll hopefully get away to Toronto when it's 118 here in the desert.

Last weekend I was in Chicago doing some puppetry on a music video, but I'm not sure how much I can share. I think I can share a production photo and if I can't, I'm sure the right people will contact me and ask me to take it down. The photo is courtesy of JP's cell phone. You can see me tucked underneath the table. I was puppeteering a butterfly that I had been asked to make about 10 minutes prior. I think I whipped it out in less than 5 minutes with only a t-shirt, wire, hot-glue & a marker. I felt like McGuyver.

In a way, that butterfly was very important. At least performing it was. As a kid I watched Sesame Street (of course I did) and in the Bert & Ernie segments especially, there seemed to always be a butterfly flitting around. I can't tell you how much I wanted to be that little butterfly. About 6 years ago I saw a purple Folkmanis butterfly puppet at the Great AZ Puppet Theater (my first trip there) & bought it right away only because it helped fulfill that little space in my dreams. So I made this puppet & went onto the set and basically said, "I'm performing it." There wasn't any way that anyone else was going to do it. A little dream was actually fulfilled with that t-shirt. Hooray for little dreams!

Doing that project was amazing. It was hard work, but I wouldn't mind more hard work like that at all! We got there at 8:30am and left at 3:30am. I'm really thankful that I was brought in for the it and I worked with some amazing puppeteers! This was my first professional video and my first experience with monitors. I was not only intimidated by just the project alone (and the monitors), but I was surrounded by experienced puppeteers. It really was an honor working with them & watching them perform. I'm sure my performance will be picked out easily as mine will be the puppet slowly sinking and hardly emoting.

It certainly pushes me to try to improve those skills. Not that I'll ever really have an opportunity like this again, but just in case I do, I want to be prepared.

I'm leaving with my family on Friday for a much-needed vacation together. We'll return home for 5 days and then leave again for another much-needed vacation together. I'm pretty excited & busy making puppets for people in the meantime. Tonight for dinner we're having Hobo Soup.

Maker Day!

2008-05-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

So here I am in California. I was able to attend Maker Day for the Maker Faire yesterday, and met a LOT of wonderfully geeky guys and gals. Mostly guys! The makers are into programming and hacking into things, making things with gears, soldering, and dremeling which is lovely. Someone had a machine that was a tongue to lick a lollipop with the turn of a crank. A gentleman who goes by the name of Doc was telling me about his boy on a bicycle and his next goal being to animate his face. The boy's, not his own.
Another guy I met, Simran, has made (to the best of me being able to describe things) an application that uses the wonder of virtual gravity and boxes and things crashing together in pretend-space to create a symphony of music. It's a very cool app & reminds me a lot of Electroplankton by Nintendo. (Which is a lovely little "game")

When I talk to most any of the makers--especially the ones who make baby arms move by sensors in the feet, or people who are exploring using ventriloquist dummy parts to create robots-- I think about how these things can merge in the world of puppetry. Puppetry overlaps to nearly every art-form. Hackers, programmers, visual artists, fiber artists, welders, woodworkers, actors and vocalists all have their important and vital roles in puppetry. WOW. I can't wait to talk about puppetry on Sunday and how each and every person there should become involved with it in some way.

Want to see a picture of me at Maker? Yes. So silly I am. I took a trip to the Maker Shed to see my kits displayed and they were sitting right next to John Kennedy's Puppet Planet. That's pretty darn rad, if I do say.

Frogs & San Francisco

2008-04-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

On the day before yesterday, I was asked by the good people at Make:/Craft: Magazine to go to the Maker Faire to be a demonstrator & possibly speak. Wow, what an incredibly awesome honor & opportunity! I bought my plane tickets yesterday and will go have a weekend on the town in San Francisco. Hooray! I also got the most amazing amigurumi frog in the mail from Italy yesterday. It was a little birthday gift to myself. I love it. WOW. Rosy LaWood is the artist who made the frog. The card inside the frog's messenger bag says, "please take care of me." Gosh, this frog is just so much fun! She's just begging to go to San Francisco with me!
So, really this week has been pretty darn rad.

Phillip Huber arrives to our theater next week. I think next week will also be rad. I'm in awe of marionettes and particularly his marionettes. He has really worked hard to preserve the history of puppetry. I admire him a lot.

I decided to celebrate all of these things by making myself a Shirley Temple. Mmmm delicious.

Congratulations, Stacy Wolf!

2008-04-08T10:51:00.000-07:00

Last night I attended the screening & awards ceremony for the Independent Feature Project's 4 Season Short Film Challenge (yes, mouthful). Our film was up for Best Feature, Best Writing/Story, & Best Director. We didn't expect to walk away with anything at this point. We'd already won the Winter Challenge, but we were competing against 15 other filmmakers & their films.

While our film didn't win $1,000, we did take home a lovely Plexiglas award, given to Stacy Wolf. Ya know, usually my first name gets misspelled. This I am used to. But my last name, not so much. But they did get one letter in my last name right, so that's good!

So I suppose, to get it fixed they either need to get me a new one. I did consider finding someone with the last name Wolf & marrying him/her. Or I suppose I could have just had it changed legally without marrying anyone. Considering I'm already married & have business cards with my name on them, I decided to ask them to send me a new award. The nice thing is that I get to keep the old one, so that means I get TWO!

So I guess I'm here being ridiculous & people are liking my ridiculous. Yay for that.

I am a serious grown-up

2008-04-02T23:52:00.000-07:00

About a half-hour ago I watched the clock change to midnight. I'm 30.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to eat cereal with no character on the box. For lunch I will eat a sandwich on whole-grain bread. I also plan to discuss my goiter with several people at a grocery store with whom I share no real connection. I'll retire to bed at 7:30pm and get up at 4am, go to the IHOP and ask for an early bird special. I will use the word elderly well more than I should.

I tell lies & that makes me happy. No. I'm happy because I immediately tattle. On myself. I'm meta.

You People Deserve To Read Something

2008-03-30T22:19:00.001-07:00

Good golly, how many times have you checked back & nothing new had been posted? I keep feeling as though I'm on the edge of something, so I hesitate in posting because, well, something significantly rad might come up tomorrow, whereas right now nothing definite is going on & reading about maybes is boring and difficult to follow.

I've been asked to go to Toronto in May to give an improv workshop to puppeteers. Oh, man, you have no idea how excited I am about this! I geek out over both of these things so hard. I love teaching improv to people who don't really know how/what it is. The fundamentals of improvisational theater are so lovely! Anthony Fama, of Tucson's Streetprov, has often said that the fundamentals of improv would solve a lot of people's problems (to be fair, I'm sure many people have said this, however I associate it with Anthony). I believe it to be true. There are some great foundations for life. I think everyone should be required to take First Aid/CPR, Driving Lessons & at least one improv workshop from the right person. I suggest Joe Bill.

The other half of that geeking out is that I adore seeing other puppeteers doing wonderful things & I'm rarely around puppeteers that I haven't known for 6 years! Oh man, and there's another side of it: Toronto! Yay that!

(Allison, did you hear gunshots around 10:30 on Sunday night? Yeah, me too..just now)

Also, I made a cabbage. I like him.

Happy Pie Day!

2008-03-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

I declare today the best day of all!

Second best: International Talk like o'Pirate day

Lessons from the Muppets

2008-03-07T20:07:00.000-08:00

The Muppet exhibit at the Arizona Museum for Youth closes on Sunday, so I did one last trip today with a friend. I looked for specific things today & how I could apply them to my own work. I did find techniques that I might use, but more importantly, looking at the puppets & Jim's doodles, I realized that there's a beautiful lack of perfection to most of it.

While the puppets are well more than what I can muster, they're not the models of perfection that I had built them up to be in my mind, from television, or from the initial exhibit visit, at which I was just amazed to be in the same room as these great works of art (not to mention Dave Goelz).

This time around I was looking for imperfections and I found them. Just like I can for anything in life, especially my own work. While I won't ever be content with my work, seeing all of these wonderful imperfections from people so highly revered encouraged me to go a little easier on myself.

I think the perfection that has been built up in my mind was due to the excitement & energy that Jim Henson & his cohorts put into it all. I've got that...holy crap, I've got that! So I'm just going to go with it. I'm not going to worry about what so-and-so might think....My own style & better building will come with time & with practice. I don't need to be perfect, I just need to do what I'm doing with the joy that it brings me. And if that doesn't make me successful, then I'll be having too much fun with what I'm doing to know that I'm miserable, right?

Just because I like to throw in photos, my carrot army is at the top there...its me..having fun with what I do!

Puppet Pie has found a mascot.

2008-02-28T01:21:00.001-08:00

I present to you....

PUPPET PIE!

It's a finger puppet. Part of Pie-Pact '08, however I decided that since I have so many things actually named Puppet Pie, that maybe I should keep this one. However *ahem* if you would like your own piece of puppet pie in any flavor of your choosing (most taste like felt), then just let me know & maybe I'll invest the time into making more for Etsy.

Also....Tonight our short film project for IFP's winter festival took home 3 awards:
1)Best Story.
*ahem* I'd like to thank Mack Duncan for our lovely brainstorming session & a lack of sleep for providing me with lines so hilarious that I shouldn't write them in a public space.
2)Best Use of Puppets
*ahem* I'd like to thank the panel of judges for making up an award specific to our show. I'd like to apologize to each film that did not get an award tailored to their piece. Specifically, I'm sorry film with the fat-suit. I really thought you should have had the best fat-suit award.
3)First Place (and a cash prize!)
*ahem* um..are you sure? You watched it, right? The one we submitted........Really? Wow. um...thank you? I think. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.

They took our picture. On the first one I thought, "oh lame, I get my picture taken & I smile like a 3 year old..that's great." On the second I thought "I get a second shot at the photo!" By the third photo I was really just a tad dazed.

The film will be presented at the Phoenix Film Festival on April 7th.

I want to make more films.

being proactive instead of reactive

2008-02-22T21:36:00.001-08:00

Of all of the puppets that I've made, I think this frog might be my favorite. I think one of the reasons for that is because I didn't get to keep him for very long. He was shown at a local art gallery in '06 and I wasn't expecting him to sell. I'd made him out of the leftover fabric from a dinosaur costume that I'd made for my son for Halloween that year. At least I think that's where the fabric came from....

I was telling a friend of mine how I am sad that I haven't kept a few key puppets in my building career...the frog, the Phoenix Coyotes Puppets, and a bunny or two. My friend said, "Well, why can't you just recreate the frog?" I thought of a long list of unreasonable reasons to not remake him, one reason being, "I don't have the same fleece." Then thought that I should at least try it no matter what color he is. Green is still the goal, here.

So I've embarked on a make-a-puppet-for-myself adventure. I am not going to post this one to Etsy and I'm not going to use it for any shows (that I know of). I'm taking my time, I'm starting over with things when they don't work right, and I'm allowing myself to put him down without being finished with him. Leaving him alone when he's not finished is actually the hardest part of this project. A) I want to see him done! B) there's a lingering fear that if I put him down, I might never find the time/motivation to pick him up again. So far, I've gone back to him. And, I'm really excited about the whole thing.

I give another workshop to another library for teens & tweens tomorrow..and then again on Thursday & the following Saturday & that ends my library run of workshops. By the way, if you live anywhere near Phoenix, just let me know if you want to know about the workshops in more detail...the Library is paying me to teach, so it's free to anyone ages 12-18.

There. I've updated. Are you happy?

The title was so lame, I changed it.

2008-02-08T01:17:00.000-08:00

Now, I told myself at the beginning of this journal that I'd not write about my boring personal life. I justify telling you about both my bronchitis and pink eye (at the same time) because I'm relating it to puppetry somehow.

A few weeks ago I was talking with a friend about interrupted plans..."I'll take January off (HAH!) & hit February really hard...." So, here it is, 1 week into February. I've been sick for nearly 2 weeks. All of my plans for February have been halted. Even January's plans didn't go according to plan. I prepared two shows, gave one workshop, met Dave Goelz & saw Kermit the Frog & Rowlf the dog (& Bert & Ernie & Cantus & Gobo & Gonzo & others...) for the very first time, filmed two puppet videos, taught classes, hosted an out-of-town guest and took at least one shower. All of this despite my wanting to take a little break.

Sometimes it feels like our plans are constantly interrupted. I'm not so sure that's true though, even though it seems to happen a lot. We silly humans remember abnormalities more-so than good ole regular things. So anytime a plan goes.....as planned, then we just assume that to be a normal thing. Anytime it goes down the drain, we remember it... This is something I have to remind myself of. Hey self, remember that time when I had 1 week to make 4 puppets and I did it? That was cool. That was a complete & utter abnormality. Maybe that's why I remember it. Oh the theory works! That makes me clap.

Life events always teach you something if you let them. What have I learned? Maybe it's to be flexible in my plans. To allow my plans to change rather than to be sad that they're not fulfilled. To be accepting of the changes & alter things accordingly. And that my eyes will scream if I forget to use their special eye drops.

Puppeteers Aren't Born

2008-01-22T13:25:00.000-08:00

I am learning how to do puppetry for film. Not so much by taking classes, but by filming, then messing up, then filming some more. I'm pretty excited about some of the shots we've gotten & pretty darn upset with myself for other shots.

The director at our theater always tells my students, "Nobody was born knowing how to do this. Everyone has had to make these mistakes and everyone has had to learn how to correct those mistakes."

Sometimes I think I was born knowing how to do all of these amazing things, and then when I do them for the first time (or the 89th time) and it's not perfect, I get frustrated because, dag nabbit I should have gotten that right the first time. I should have known, etc.

I'm making beginner's mistakes & just wish I wasn't a beginner.

Happy New Puppets!

2008-01-13T23:36:00.000-08:00

Since I last wrote anything here, a new year has begun, a puppet show has been created, and 4 show puppets have been built. This show was a collaboration between a fellow puppeteer & myself. It was the first show that we've done together in 5 years without another puppeteer whom we regularly performed with. I wasn't sure if we could pull it off. I wasn't sure if our humor would be of the same caliber, or if I could make the amount of puppets needed without his help. I'm so very pleased with how everything turned out. There's a sad empty space where the person in our group used to be, but we've survived our first round of shows without him there. I've passed the test I put myself through. I'm proud of myself. I'm proud of the other puppeteer. We work well together.

I'm going to now go into a mom thing....I can't help but record this little moment. I'm on the laptop in my bed...the boy asleep next to me. His tiny little hand stretched out and relaxed & his fingers are so soft. I keep grabbing them & he clenches them up a bit more. They remind me of his baby hands. I love that he wants to grow up to be an artist. Even if he choses math or sports, I'll be OK. For now, I'll enjoy that he reminds me of his newborn puppy-boy ways when he sleeps.

OK, back to puppet-talk.
With all of the puppets I made this time around, I experimented more with using halves of ping pong balls, instead of whole balls. I think I'll need to be more patient with attaching the ball to the face, so there are no gaps. Filling in the empty spaces with foam is common sense at this point. I love that I'm at a point at which some aspects of puppetry are common sense to me. Not so much for things like arm-rods, or even foam body construction. And a friend did come in and save me with advice for saving a beak.

What's next for puppet building?
I'm going to take my time with some puppets. I'll neglect my Etsy shop just a little bit. I'll spend some serious time with a puppet or two in February. I thought, if this chicken is what I can do in 4 hours...then what could I do with 14 days? Of course, my immediate response is, "well, I can mess around for 12 of those days, think about making the puppet for 2 of those days, then in the last 4 hours I can whip out another one of these." But that's instinct & I'm attempting to go against my instincts.

Oh those little hands on my tummy.....

Happy Merridays!

2007-12-25T20:27:00.000-08:00

"Mom! Wake up! The snow if falling from the ground!" This is what I was told at 7:30 this morning by my 4-year-old. Not "Mom, It's Christmas!" no "Mom, Santa brought me stuff!" not even "Hey, Look what I unwrapped for you!" My son knows what's important. His first white Christmas. It's also my first as well. My 30th Christmas & My son's 5th. The weeks leading up to Christmas he said "It always snows on Christmas in Colorado." We didn't want him to be disappointed, so we told him that, no, it doesn't always, in fact...it rarely does. So this morning, he saw it snowing from the ground & had to come tell me. It was much more important than the day that gifts are dumped upon his sweet head. We went downstairs to see the deck looking about an inch or two deep in snow and by now its about 9" deep 14 hours later. It's beautiful. I miss snow a lot. ( Toronto??)

So this week we're with just over half of the cousins. Imagine 10 children under the age of 7 running (and crawling) around the house. Of course Auntie Stacey is friggin rad because she knows all of these neat-o crafts and projects to do. So in one day we made sock puppets, paper-plate puppets, felt finger puppets & stick puppets (I feel wrong calling them rod puppets when they're made with Popsicle sticks). Yep, she's rad. I wish to meet her someday.

I realize this post has very little to do with puppetry or my journey to become a better puppeteer. Taking this break before I need to return home is, I'm sure, part of the journey. Not that the break should exactly be taken. I'll return home late on Sunday & I need 4 show puppets done by Thursday. Like I said in the previous post...baby-steps!

I remember the day when I had someone to help me build puppets. That day was nice. Someday I'll find another helper and I'll look back at this post and giggle and probably say "yeah, I'm still like that, aren't I?"

I feel like I need to end this post with some sort of "may your ___ be ___" statement. I'd sit here and think of a good one without writing in all of the stream-of-consciousness thought's involved in finding something witty to say, but then I'd probably just stare at the fish in the tank next to me in my Father-In-Law's office while they eat their Christmas flakes. And you be way less entertained because then you'd be done reading & you'd have to go back to doing what you were trying to avoid when you began reading this in the first place, so really, I'm doing both of us a favor. So let's stall just a bit more, shall we? Did you like what you got for Christmas? Did your ___ like what you got for them? What did you guys have for lunch? OK This seems one-sided & I tire of your silence.

May the last 6 days of 2007 be better than the best things that happened between January 1st and December 25th (Of 2007). Be well, and I apologize for being ridiculous.

Loving my meat

2007-12-17T18:37:00.001-08:00

I've been really busy these past few weeks, but by far my greatest achievement happened yesterday and was the creation of raw meat.

Raw meat was more significant to me than anything else I've done recently. I think it's because I created a finger puppet that got me wanting to create more finger puppets. For so long I was creating for others. Previously I'd made something I liked, and naturally more than one person wanted a 'copy,' so I didn't have the time (or the creative juices) to create for myself anymore. Not for a long time anyway. So, I've stopped taking custom orders in my shop & now, if I don't want to recreate something, then I don't have to. Sure, I could have denied people before, but I'm one of those people who wants to accommodate everyone. If you ask for maize, by golly I'll give you maize...or squid Elvis...or bacon...or other personal-to-a-woman type puppets...

This break really came on the heels of doubting myself as an artist. I had stopped expressing what's inside of me (yes, raw meat is totally inside of me). I was creating what *had* been inside of me but was now put into a tiny felt sculpture. I hope this will also affect my hand puppets. I've lifted the pressure of deadlines & requests in some ways. Of course there area always deadlines for show puppets, but let's take baby-steps.

The workshop in Casa Grande went swimmingly. I had a wonderful mixture of adults and kids (ages 10+). Every time I do a workshop, I am absolutely floored by what comes out of the minds of others. I really can't wait to go back. It was lovely. Just being in that city makes me feel warm and fuzzy. The craft store closes at 3:30 on Saturdays. It's very similar to the town in which I grew up. Simply adorable. Granted, it's much larger than my hometown, but the main, downtown area is very similar.

First Friday's Artwalk at the Trunk Space was quiet and lovely. The rain kept most people away which, for me, is a very relaxing thing. I adore spending a few quiet hours in the company of friends, drinking an Izzie, surrounded by art & talking about...youtube videos.

I'm getting around!

2007-11-15T00:13:00.001-08:00

I feel like I might be everywhere at once. This is a bit of late-night thought gathering, so it might be disordered & long-winded, but then again, when is my life not that way?

So I was thinking about where my puppets are as of late...
I may or may not be sending puppets to Everette, Washington (just waiting on a contract) to be sold in a bookstore/gift shop there.
My work will be not only seen, but for sale at The Trunk Space's gift art show for the next two months, the opening is this Friday night.
Commercial is still running. That's exciting.
I'm also doing a workshop at the Paramount Theater in Casa Grande, AZ on December 8th! Same as the other one, but further south & $5.00 more (if you want to go, 520-316-9290 or email michelle@paramount-theatre.com).

I feel extremely happy with myself regarding all of these "goings arounds"

I'm apparently bad at blogging

2007-11-12T22:25:00.000-08:00

I keep meaning to write something of great importance, but I put it off, then I forget about it. It was so important, right?

I've been taking these last couple of weeks to actually be productive. That includes making puppets, listing puppets on etsy, taking pictures of puppets, updating bad pictures of puppets & giving puppet workshops.

Speaking of workshops, the workshop on November 10th was amazing! Thank you to everyone who not only showed up, but showed up with enthusiasm and an open mind to discovering their puppet. Yes, it sounds like a hippie way to build, but sometimes you just have to let go and let puppet...or something like that.

A bit of an amusing story...So about an hour and a half before the workshop, as my husband and I were on our way home from grabbing some last-minute supplies, I start to feel a bit under the weather...the car ride wasn't helping. I just barely made it to the toilet & had some diarrhea of the face. I climbed into bed with the usual post-barfing shakes & called the venue. Basically we decided that if I could do it, I'd do it, but if I couldn't, the people who signed up are all very understanding & some might not mind a postponement. I didn't want to leave anyone hanging, so I decided I'd go as far as I could. If that was 1/2 way through the workshop, then so be it. Thankfully the more I got to thinking about puppets, the less I got to thinking about vomit. The ginger ale helped, too.

There seems to be a trend in my puppet workshops & vomit coming out of my body. 3 hours before I was to leave for New York to give a workshop at the Etsy labs in June, I got the stomach bug that had been going around our home. I decided to still go & had a great time. I think I need to give at least one more workshop for adults to see if this theory holds up.

Contest Winner Announcement!

2007-11-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

I hearby officially declare and decree:
Yesterday, in the midst of trick-or-treaters, a young Godzilla reached into a bowl and pulled out the number 19. What does that mean? Well, the 19th transaction of the 20 transactions eligible to win the puppet from the drawing post in, oh gosh, was that back in August? was the winner!

Who made that transaction you ask? Well by golly it was Megan Mucci of http://muttsywonder.etsy.com! Congratulations Megan! I wish I'd thought of sending your fluffy puppet today when I was at the post office...Oh well, look out for him soon...and by soon I mean sometime before Christmas!

My sad, sweet condolences to everyone else who did not win the puppet. But don't lose hope, there will be more contests like these! Misfit puppets need love and support, and the only way to give them what they need is to have people win them. You love something if you win it, right? So keep your eyes peeled both here and in my shop to see what the next little bundle of fluff might be up for the winning!

In mild other news, I have a puppet slam tomorrow night at the Great Arizona Puppet Theater at 8pm. I'm in at least two shows & am pretty darned excited as this will be my first performance venture into shadow puppetry. oooOOoooo

Wayne Gretzky & Puppets & Me

2007-09-30T13:08:00.000-07:00

I saw the commercial today. Its pretty good. I, of course, wish the manipulation was better on my puppets, but that's OK. I'm kind-of weirded out that my puppets have now been on television. yah

Anyway, here's the video:

Me and the Other Guy

2007-09-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

Well, the other guy is done and there are some good pictures of him, now. I really had to begin both puppets on Sunday. I can't believe I got two done in one day! It helps when you have a lot of motivation like that.

Don, the hired puppeteer, came to pick them up this morning at 7am. These are two puppets I wish I didn't have to get rid of. But if I watch TV, I'll get to see them! (*squeee*)

So it's a bit after 10:30 and I haven't heard about whether or not they'll need me. I'm thinking they won't. Oh well. I'll only be disappointed if some extra on-hand person does it and is a bad puppeteer.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy them. I can't believe I did both in a single day! I feel so productive.

Me and the Monsters

2007-09-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

I finished one of the puppets and sit with an un-stuffed arm in my lap and fluff all around me right now.

I have to iron some Coyotes logos onto some onesies and stuff and sew two arms onto the other puppet, but after that I'm finished!

I hope to take some great pictures of him before they leave tomorrow morning.

Here's your sneak-peak. He's going to wear a jersey-style shirt with a Coyotes logo. It will be spectacular.

Me and the Commericals

2007-09-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

I was very recently asked to make puppets for a local commercial.
Wow!

My life is weird. I enjoy weird.

It makes me think, well, maybe they were desperate...maybe I know the right people.... maybe I'm not that bad of a puppet-builder. Maybe I'll get more work from this...maybe this is just a fun jaunt...maybe I'll meet Wayne Gretzky.

All of these things could be and probably are true. A combination of talent, who you know, and dumb luck.

I will post photos of the puppets as soon as they're finished. Until then, I'm off to make some monsters for television!

Puppet-Making Workshops

2007-09-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be giving a make-and-take puppetry workshop at The Trunk Space on November 10th. I hope lots of people sign up.

I'm also giving a puppetry workshop in Brooklyn, New York on October 12th. Oh, and I'll hopefully also be giving a kid's workshop in Brooklyn as well! I hope more people sign up for that one because it costs a lot to fly across the country. That and I love teaching. Especially kids...and adults. Man, that's a tough call. It's a really neat experience watching adults turn into little kids when they make puppets and at the same time I love to see a child with that overwhelming power of "OH MY GOSH I MADE A PUPPET!"

Either way, I'll get to see what this strange phenomenon, "Autumn" is. You see, New York has things called "trees," and those trees have "leaves" that actually change colors when it gets cold outside! Its like a hyper-color shirt from the 80's.

Hooray 80's.

Also in the exciting world of me, I'm attempting to develop my website. Not much there right now, but I have a friend who is going to help me. And unlike when most people say, "I'm having a friend help me," I think she'll actually help me. You can check out her stuff here.