Archives for category: Absurd
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Studio One workshop

October 12, 2014 //
4

little skeleton

Last week I had this great workshop at Studio One in Auckland. It was supposed to be a holiday programme for kids from 10 to 14. Truth was the youngest was just 8 and I was a bit worried, that the age difference would be too noticeable. Surprisingly it wasn’t at all. They all played wonderfully together and came up with this lovely story not to judge a book by its cover. I am always amazed about their creativity. Isn’t this skeleton just gorgeous? It is made out of two shuttlecocks and pipe cleaner by thirteen-year-old David. We had so many characters in the end we could easily have made a few films…. But what I really like is that they come up with one story as a group and work on it together.

For me personally it was a wonderful break from the drudgery of school and it became very clear to me that I have to get back into the swing with my puppets. I have three projects on the boil and have to make up my mind which one I am starting first. Life is definitely too short…

And here is the film we’ve created.

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Categories Absurd, Art, film, Fun, Life, Stop Motion, workshop

Rapids

October 5, 2014 //
1

rapids

At the moment I am fighting a terrible cold. I seem not to be able to shift it at all. That adds to my stresses at work or maybe I can’t shift it because of what’s going on at work. Personally I try not to get involved in the stress-mongering. As a  part-timer I have the luxury to be able to move away and do other things when people get their nickers in the twist, unless of course I have to teach. Unfortunately the last two weeks I had a full-time teaching laod and had no time for myself.

Our school is a relatively new outfit. We don’t have management on site. The managers are somewhere down country and someone from the higher ranks is visiting us every one or two weeks, but not necessarily the same person. We are only a handful of people at our site and pretty much everyone who works at the office believes we should work as a team. Unfortunately one person is a control freak and makes everything their business. If there are some brownie points to be had, this person steamrolls everyone else and hogs the communication channels. I had asked management to proivde us with an organigram as they see the structure in our office, so that we all know where we are standing. I was surprised to hear that they are not willing to give us a firm answer at this point. My conclusion is that we are dealing with a weak management and I have my suspicion that they tell everyone a slightly different version of what they want from us.

This week I have some time off to do a holiday puppet workshop at Studio One with kids between nine and fourteen. I am so looking forward to a good laugh. I will do me wonders.

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Categories Absurd, Comedy, Life, Relationships

Hibernation?!

September 27, 2014 //
4

hibernation3

Oh dear, it has been noted that my Dedes have become silent. The last post was on the 7th of September. T W E N T Y  days ago! Usually I am a reliable person with a good dose of energy… not anymore!

Okay, earlier in the year my world turned upside down due to circumstances beyond my control and my dearest Dedes were at hand to get me through the rough patch. It looked like everything was starting to fall into place around mid-year… A new part-time teaching job, hurrah and then… three month later I wake up to find myself wham bang in the middle of a real-life puppet show. Sorry, I won’t kiss and tell, but what’s currently happening makes for a wonderful script. I am pretty sure, once it is turned into a performance a lot of people out there can identify with it. It is just so sad, that it always takes a while until you realise what hits you and in the meantime a lot of energy is wasted.

I am not sure yet, whether I should turn the drama into a new book or a film. So watch this space.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Hand Puppets, Life

A bit of magic

September 7, 2014 //
2

Life is a bit of a chaos at the moment and when this happens the blog has to take a back seat. There is one more film from last week to put up, which is really an easy task and only takes a minute. But I got side tracked again, as I took in a homeless person this week and preferred to have good conversations around the dinnertable rather than popping down to the computer to work on my blog. Yes, a real conversation beats sitting in front of the computer anytime. So, here slightly delayed the last film we made at the Festival. This one is an impromptu impromptu. Impromptu for me, as I wasn’t prepared for the participants and impromptu for them as they weren’t expecting it at all. It was a a group of 8 to 10 year-olds. I had accidentially set up the stage in the wrong room. Luckily three out of the four people that had enrolled in the worksho pthat day were sick. We just got into the swing with the last remaining person when a group of kids showed up for their weekly art class. There was a bit of a discussion who’s room it was. It turned out that the volunteer at the reception had forgotten to tell me I should set-up somewhere else, so I offered my participant to come to the next workshop at my studio when the group will be bigger. She was very happy with this solution. So my assistant and I started packing up when the art teacher suggested we should run the workshop with the kids as we were here anyway. Working with kids is so different from working with grown-ups. Workshops with kids are full on, as they all want to talk at once and you have to channel their engery.No way I could run a workshop without an assistant. But it is great fun, I thoroughly enjoy seeing them getting right into it.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, film, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Stop Motion, workshop

Alien Encounter

September 1, 2014 //
0

The results of last week’s workshops could not have been more different. On the first day we had only a small group. Half the people who had booked  into the workshop were taken ill as a nasty cough doing the rounds in Auckland. We still had great fun and in my opinion it shows in the little film.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, film, Fun, Stop Motion, workshop

Red carpet event

August 28, 2014 //
4

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This week is probably the busiest week I will have all year. It started off on Monday with finishing one puppet workshop. I had done a six week course at Toi Ora, an art trust that works in the mental health sector. This is definitely the area I want to move into. Unfortunately the course didn’t quite work as I envisaged it. I liked the students and the settings, but there were also areas that weren’t sitting right, though I think my blog isn’t the forum to divulge what didn’t work. In the course the participants made their own characters and came up with the story and we celebrated the uplaod of our little film with a red carpet event. It’s a very short film, so we only had a very little red carpet.

And here  is the film

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, film, Fun, Life, Stop Motion, workshop

How to become an artist?

August 25, 2014 //
2

chech witch

The picture today shows a hand-crafted czech witch, which is on display at the Festival. I have my eyes on her as I see myself in her, but I can’t afford the little cutey. Pity.

This week I will give two talks. One at the gallery about “puppets in today’s world” and the other at school about my artwork. I prepared both talks on Saturday, writing down minutely what I want to say. though I know very well its impossible for me to stick to a script.  As usual I will digress on the day. On the slightest cue from the audience I am off in a tangent. Though I find writing down speeches a brilliant exercise to focus on what I am doing and condense my thoughts into easy to digest sentences. The talk I will deliver to the students will be mainly inspirational and only in the end I will touch on my own pathway. The key message is that in my opinion there are two approaches to be recognised as artist: Either by your work or by your personality. Ultimately you want to be heard in the world of chatter. If you are aiming to be recognised by your work you need to find your style: your voice. If you want to be recognised for who you are you basically have to make noise, be outrageous in one way or another. Of course nothing is as clear-cut… but there is a chance for the quieter ones amongst us.

 

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Categories Absurd, Art, craft, Exhibition, Fun, Life, workshop

First report

August 10, 2014 //
0

skeleton Jonathon Acorn

The opening yesterday was an absolute hit. We had around 500 people of all ages through the gallery. Each and everyone lingering for a while and having a close look at the puppets and watching the performances. The day started off with market day, where kids could make their own simple puppets and we had two puppeteers taking turns in perfroming. The picture above shows Jonathon Acorn’s Skeleton having a break from singing and shaking his bones :). Jonathon is a well-known Auckland busker and it was so fantastic to have him perfroming with his the Skeleton in front of the Gallery yesterday. If you missed him yesterday… You can find him on most sunny days in downtown Auckland :).

skeleton Jonathon Acorn-2

Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Exhibition, Fun, Hand Puppets

Gone bananas

July 18, 2014 //
0

Here is the second film we did last week. This one was created by a group of teenagers as a holiday programme. Pretty slim pickings, but we got there in the end. In this film the kids had to make their own actors and they also created the music, the backdrop and the props. I enjoyed working with the youngsters and I’ve learned a tremendeous amount. The kids on the other hand just thought I was weird… Happy, but weird!

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, film, Fun, Life, Stop Motion, workshop

Library visit

July 14, 2014 //
2

At the moment we have school holidays and I did two puppet workshops last week. They couldn’t have be more different. The one I was so looking forward to was a four morning course where the participants were supposed to do the full monty – creating the actors, coming up with the story, making props and then filming the thing. The other one was just one afternoon in the library, where the participants invented an impromptu story and used the Dedes to act it out.

The course in the library was fantastic. It doesn’t take long to set the youngsters (aged between eight and twelve years) off to come up with a weird and wonderful story. There was no stopping them. All of them were running around making up props and chopping and changing the storyline. One of them sneaked in their own puppet. You might notice the non-Dede in the group picture at the end of the film when they celebrate.

Ah well, the other workshop was totally different. First of all it was a different age range. Here the participants were teenagers and puppets are so uncool. It is strange how kids can be so creative when they are twelve and with their thirteenth birthday all the creativity seems to go out the window. And then when they leave school, they are expected to be creative to find a job….

We did get there in the end, though I don’t know how much sticks in their minds, but I’ve learned heaps.

Here is the film from the library.

Enjoy.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, film, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Stop Motion, workshop
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