Like a lot of children I was given a glove puppet when i was growing up. I remember it well... it was a little beaver called Chippy. I remember learning the basics of my puppetry from my days as a Sunday school performer. Schools, local authorities and Sunday schools provide great opportunities for people to learn and grow in their talent and ability. An organisation that has helped me over the years is One Way UK. You may have already noticed me mention them before as a company I have worked for... as well as the company that will be stocking some of my puppet designs in the future. (Well done you if you spotted the links). One Way UK provide training for puppeteers almost every weekend of the year, in the past I have both benefited form this training and been a trainer for them. That's the case next weekend, on the 26th and 27th October I will be working as a trainer at the EPMF. The weekend is aimed at puppeteers working in schools or Sunday schools, but would benefit anyone who wants to gain basic puppetry skills. If you are going I'll see you there... if you're not going, I'll let you know how it goes.
All this reminiscing has got me thinking back a few years and I found an old photo you may enjoy laughing at. Here's me in the USA 10 years ago, meeting my puppetry hero Dave Privett. It's hard to believe but I was once skinny with good legs! What can I say - I played a lot of football in those days and short shorts were in fashion. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!) Dave is a great guy, If you check back to the first blog you will see that I met up with him last year for a puppet building tutorial day.Below is another blast from the past. It is my old puppet team, the Unlimited Puppet Crew. This photo was taken just before a Christmas performance... we had just bought the lovely new shirts.
Thanks for visiting again folks... all the best
Dave
1 comment:
What I loved about puppet performances (as I did them for my daughter) was watching her completely believe in the character, even though I was inches away, hiding behind a pillow or whatever was available. I was a part of the puppet crew at my church back in 1991, but that was the extent of any public perfomances, partly because I'm not very good on the fly.
Now that we have another baby on the way I'm anxious to get back into puppetry (on a very small scale). I don't think I'll be making anymore puppets; after all, you saw about the extent of my abilities a while ago, lol. But man will it be fun to perform for my daughter, and to have Caelyn (my older daughter) perform with me! And with your puppets getting picked up by One Way, I just might have a chance at one or two or more! Of course, the absolute disgraceful weakness of the Dollar might make that an impossibility when it comes right down to it :-(
You played a lot of soccer (football)? My wife also played, competitively, but I only did it recreationally (let's face it, at 290 some odd pounds, I just wasn't built for the pitch!). Did I tell you that my wife and I have coached Caelyn's soccer team for the past 3 seasons? Her last regular season game is this Saturday, then she'll start indoor soccer at the local YMCA. In the Spring we'll be looking into a couple of clubs in town.
Wow, sorry about the length of this comment, I got a little carried away, lol. Take care Dave.
Post a Comment