Day #33: I left my camera at home

...stay tuned for part two, where I take an actual picture!

Day #32: Pacific Trash Vortex Jellyfish

It's fun to recycle and create puppets. Today I was stuck at home, recovering from a nasty stomach bug...and I had to use what I have at home. We have stuff at home...but I must confess that I absolutely abhor plastic bags. We try so hard to avoid plastic, but it doesn't seem to matter because we somehow keep collecting it. We bring our own bags to the grocery store, but still our collection grows. And grows...

Have you heard about the Pacific Trash Vortex? Accounts vary in terms of the size of this giant patch of garbage that has coalesced in the Pacific Ocean. The size of Texas? Twice the size of Texas? Bigger still?

Well, point is that it, well, is.

Very scary.

So today's puppet is a tribute to the amount of plastic that we have in our house and to this growing "island" in the Pacific that I hope will never actually appear on any map.

Day #31: Finger Puppet (literally!)

This is what you post when you have finally succumbed to the dreaded stomach bug...wish I had more to share. (And hope I haven't share the bug with anyone I know!)

Day #30: The Humanette

Wow. I finally stumped Wikipedia. There is no entry for Humanette, which just goes to show that this type of puppet is a bit obscure! Humanettes are a human-hybrid puppet. Typically, a puppeteer will use their own head and attach a miniature body to it. They can they manipulate the hands and/or body in order to bring their character to life.

The Humanette!

 I've seen this kind of puppet used in cabaret shows, but one of my favorite uses was in a show called "Salmagundy" by Perry Alley Theatre. In this performance, Bonnie and Andrew Periale tell several stories and during one of the tales, Bonnie plays the daughter of Andrew by becoming a humanette. She portrayed a delightful young girl and it was done so perfectly; the show was zany and loads of fun!

I need to give a bit of backstory...I was really stumped tonight. It had been a long day (writer's conference, park, birthday party of a friend...busy). We had fabulous homemade pizza for dinner. Yum! I kept thinking about today's blog and coming up with nothing.

It was getting pretty desperate. I even started looking around for a paper bag (I am going to have to do it sometime this year, right?). Then my kids start chiming in with lots of suggestions. My ten-year-old came out with a stuffed dragon and was moving it all around.

"That's great, sweetie, but I didn't make it," I said.

"But you could make it move!" she exclaimed (with a fabulous demonstration).

"Well, yes...but I am supposed to be making the puppets or adapting them. I would be cheating if I just wiggle a stuffed animal around. It has to be something I made."

I stared at my daughter for a moment. I thought about how, technically, I had contributed more to the creation of my daughter than I had to the stuffed animal she was holding...AH-HAH!

Oh yes...I was going to turn my daughter into a puppet!

I grabbed a lovely handmade dress from the sock-monkey (thank you, Julia Hebner). I took a pair of stockings, stuffed them, covered them with white gloves, and inserted them into the dress: arms!

We found a black shirt and were all set to go...a humanette is born!

My daughter is quite the drama queen. Seriously. Just see for yourself!

I'm not sure she wanted this one up...

Grumble, grumble...

(Um...she's not exactly camera shy, is she?)

This is my favorite!

Day #29: Busy Bee at the studio today

Bumblebee from "Little by Little."

We were busy bees at the studio today. We created several bumblebees using needlefelting and wet-felting techniques. The tiny puppet is very solid and "bumbles" along quite nicely!

We only got around to adding wings and a rod to one of the bees. I don't always like to use the word "cute" when talking about puppets, but this one is, well, really cute, huh?

We finally managed to figure out how to do a video clip -- we'll keep working on these and incorporate some more soon!

Day #28: Skating on Thin Ice...

Just returned home from a fabulous dinner at The Nile -- an Ethiopian restaurant here in Richmond. Before heading out, I wondered...could I make a puppet from Injera (the spongey pancake bread they serve). I totally meant to try it...but we, well, sort of ate it all. Oops.

So we will have to do it again and exercise more restraint...or order some to go?

For today's puppet, I walked in the door (from our fun double date with friends!) and looked around. I noticed my daughter's skate guards. Hers are pink and made from terry cloth. I've made a number of puppets using regular terry cloth and stretch terry -- it's a great nappy fabric; you can easily hide stitching.

Pink Skate Guard (Cover for the blade)

Searching for inspiration, I picked up her skate guards and started playing around with them. I ran upstairs, grabbed a sock, found an elastic hair-tie, and dug around for my sunglasses. The result: a crazy flamingo-esque creature! Works for me.

Assembling the ingredients...

I folded the skate guards to create a beak.

The mouth moves!

Hanes...

Stylin' with the sunglasses!

We had such a great night.....and Mango sorbet for dessert!

Day #27: Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss -- and a different type of "hand" puppet altogether

In our house, we have read lots of Dr. Seuss, and The Lorax is one of our favorite stories. When our older daughter was two years old, she requested it EVERY night for months in a row. My husband and I can still recite most of it from memory -- and we were always totally busted if we even tried to skip a page. Even at two, she had an amazing steel trap of a memory.

I didn't realize it was Dr. Seuss' birthday until it was almost noon. As soon as I did, though, I knew I had to acknowledge it in the blogosphere. But what to do?

You never see the Once-ler -- only his hands.

Since The Lorax was a favorite, I felt that I had to include that. One of the things I love so much about that book is the way you never see the face of the "bad guy." When the Once-ler is shown, you only see his hands. But you learn so much about his character just by looking at his hands. Ah-ha! A different kind of hand-puppet -- one where the character is referenced only by hands. Interesting...

So for today's puppet (and in tribute to Theodore), I made some green gloves to recreate the Once-ler. I had some great fabric in my stash that worked perfectly!

The whole family at work -- with hands galore! (No faces...)

My daughter's knitting project (the same daughter who used to request this story over and over again!). She does some great stitching.

I think it's actually scarier that you cannot see the Once-ler's face. You cannot look into his eyes; he cannot look into yours. There is no chance to connect on a personal level.

Hands can portray emotions -- like excitement!

I think I could write a dissertation on the faceless Once-ler and mega-corporations (and how Dr. Seuss had incredible prescience), but instead I will just note that you can create a whole character just through use of the hand and gestures. For your typical hand puppets, the hands of the puppet are important for communicating so much, too. Think about it. The face of the puppet is static...so how is it communicating? Oftentimes, it is through arm/hand movement and gestures (and body movement and gestures) In Japanese Bunraku tradition, the use of gesture has so much meaning and importance that each hand has its own puppeteer! (That's a slight oversimplification, but I would have to dedicate a year or more to explaining Bunraku...and you have to spend thirty years training before you can operate the right hand of the puppet.)

But we can all agree on this: Let's give Dr. Seuss a big hand!