I’ve just finished writing a book with ease and now I am labouring over my first blog entry. That comes as a surprise to me.

I guess I have to start at the beginning, explaining what dede puppets are and how they came about.

Here is the summary of the story:

Last Christmas the weather down here in New Zealand  was pretty shocking. Usually an outdoorsy type of person, I was house-bound. Not somebody to sit around for long, I had this brilliant idea to tidy up my studio. The space is choker block with old newspapers.  I am hesitant to just dispose of them, after all these particular newspapers came all the way from Germany. Re-reading them is wishful thinking, it takes me a week to get through one issue in the first place and the new ones come in weekly. So I thought I have a go of making some paper maché objects.

I started off creating a rattling cat for a friend as a belated Christmas present. It turned out surprisingly well, despite I was not really experienced with this particular medium. Unfortuantely it didn’t use up much paper, so the pile didn’t get smaller at all.

Then I remembered my mother often talking about a devil hand puppet she made for a church group (well before my time). Her eyes always lit up when she was talking about the puppet. And I thought I give this one a go. My devil turned out beautifully. Next to nothing I had a cast of 15 puppets. I got so immersed in the whole process, that I just could not stop. They are a certain style of puppet, which remind me of the German dada artist Hannah Höch. I remember, when I first saw her work, I didn’t take to it immediately, but boy, it really grew on me.

In the header of my blog you see the Professor and Pig as an example. I will post more pics in due time.

When I finally showed my puppets to some friends, they absolutely loved them. As a means of sharing my art with all my friends, I decided to write a story for the puppets and published a limited edition in hard cover. Such a small print run is terribly expensive, but it was really worth it, re feedback. I think more than 60 people must have seen the first print run and only 2 readers commented that they thought the puppets were scary. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, so I decided to go for a larger print-run.

Today I’ve got the proof from the printers. So I am a step closer to publishing. Unfortunately only yesterday a friend of mine, threw a spanner in the works. The book was originally called: Hermit’s Web, but I was told it has too much of a children’s book connotation. It is not written for children, it is rather an observation of relationships between friends and social networks. It’s a charming story for grown-ups, describing everyone’s friends. As a German, I wasn’t aware that there is a famous children’s book called “Charlotte’s Web” and Hermit sounds too much like Kermit. I know that fellow. So right at this moment I am trying to sweat out a gripping new title for the book.

Once this is done and proofs are signed off, I can attend to my web page and of course my blog. But what I really would like to do now is make new puppets.