The Amalgamation of Truth into Halves

Posted by michaelbrush on December 21, 2011 · 2 Comments 

I’ve been building puppets for one week. I don’t claim to know anything about puppetry other than what I learned through my research upon beginning this task.  I can now say with confidence that people who build puppets must have a vast array of knowledge.  I would have been better equipped learning how to be a puppeteer if I had learned how to sew first, or make crafty-type things (those of you that regularly shop at Michael’s), or took lessons in carpentry.

Unfortunately, puppeteering is only my second skill, and learning to krump didn’t necessarily make building and working a puppet any easier.

I decided when I started this blog that if I was going to do it, I was going to go all in.  And so, when pupeteering won this past week, I knew immediately that going online and finding a blueprint of a puppet just wasn’t going to be my style.

I happen to be acquainted with some members of Washington D.C’s Pointless Theatre Co. and while I have never been involved with helping them build any puppets, I have seen many of the great things they have created.  I can almost guarantee that they’ve never taken a design off of Google and passed it off as their own.  So, for the sake of puppetry and puppeteers and all that is holy, the only thing I could do was design and build my own puppets.

Also, one of the major appeals to puppetry is the fact that they can be made from anything by anyone for anything.  The fun and creative process that goes into the creation of a puppet  is difficult to match. No one has more freedom than a person building a puppet.  Upon building my puppets, I knew I could do anything I wanted with them.  Dinosaurs, aliens, people, animals, books, and anything else I could think of were possibilities.

The other aspect of building my own puppet that I loved was having complete control over ease of use.  Maybe it’s cheating. I don’t know. I mean, it’s not really cheating because I built the puppet and had to decide how it would be used, but it’s not like learning how to work a Muppet, or become a ventriloquist (which would take way more than a week), or operating one of the awesome puppets from The Lion King.

Anywho, I’m sure you’re tired of hearing me talk about building puppets and reflecting on stuff, SO HERE’S THE LINK TO ANOTHER Who is Mark Mathleton Production.

Before you click on that link and go watching my puppeteering adventures, I would like to thank Zach Michel, Robert Manzo, Mike Deal, Michael Baranoski, Kristina with a K from the Harford County Public Library (Bel Air Branch), as well as anyone else that has helped me out over the last week.

Also! Tell your friends about my blog.  I mean, if you want to.  You don’t have to do that. I just think it would be nice if you did.

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