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.
Last week I did three workshops as part of the Festival of Performing Objects. In those workshops the participants used my Dede puppets to come up with an impromptu play and then acted the story out. During the process props have to be created on the fly. The story might end up totally different than originally anticipated. The film I put up today, was the one we did last. The group did not know each other, which of course adds another dimension to the workshop. So it took a while until they came up with a subject they all could relate to. Of all three workshop this one was certainly the most structured story and thought through from from beginning to end.
Normally I would take around 200 pictures during a workshop. In this one I got barely 90, so it is a bit of a stretch. But i think the result isn’t too bad.
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
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.
Oh dear, this year seems to be the year of best intentions. I am so sorry for having neglected my blog for some time. Though it doesn’t mean the Dedes have been neglected.
You might know I have lost a few of my major sources of income at the end of last year and I have been working hard to secure new income streams. Now six month later everything came to fruition at once and this just means I am rushed off my feet to fulfill all my promises. My book of “101 recipes with flour and water” is still not finished, however, I am using it a lot, but I am stuck on 51 recipes. My backyard chooks deliver an invaluable addition to my diet too.
Recently I have taken on a part-time teaching job. My first salaried job in 20 odd years. Even though I have been teaching for a long time, it was always on a contract basis. It seems with a salary inevitably come the politics… Something I want to steer clear off as much as possible. Navigating the foul ground takes a lot of energy. Believe me, I feel some good puppet stories coming on….
The Festival of Performing Objects is about to start. This weekend I have to deliver the Dedes I want to show in the exhibition. Every Dede is keen to pack up and go. Some of them will just sit in the Gallery for the month, while others will get action in the stop-motion workshops of the last week. I have to make a decision who is going to do what. I did a lot of work in the early days of the organisation unfortunately with all the changes to my working life poor Kim (the manager of the arts centre) had to bear the brunt of the recent weeks. She did an amazing work luring puppeteers out of the underwood. I am very confident it will be a fantastic exhibition.
It looks like we are getting quite a bit of attention. The first article about the event was published this week.
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!
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.
Last weekend the Dedes were a bit upset with me for favouring the chickens. The birds showed up and I went all gooey. The Dedes have made such an effort over the last few months waiting patiently and quietly in the art cupboard for me to find my feet again. I do appreciate this but I don’t know how to express it. Nosy Neighbour, who always wants to know what’s going on, had a little peek today from the upstairs window to check out the new competition. I am pleased that he decided he wouldn’t swap places with them for anything in the world. And I hope he will tell all the others there is a clear benefit to being a Dede. You are allowed to stay inside when rain is pouring down outside. On this rainy day I too found a new appreciation for the Dede folk. They don’t make a mess! I am not really looking forward to braving the elements and cleaning out the chicken mansion today. The girls are pretty messy!
The neighbours have four or five cats and come dinner time a few strays find their way to their property for a free feed as well. The moving in of our boarders must have been the talk in the cat community yesterday. Last night, they behaved themselves and only observed from the far distance. Today a few brave ones came closer. The chickens are huge and I hope the cats think it’s TV not dinner. We have been assured the chooks will be able to defend themselves, in fact they can be very vicious. The last thing I want is some casualties on either side. At this stage, the neighbours are as excited about our ladies as we are. Should one of the cats come to harm it might be a different story.
The first night in the hen house was eventless. At nightfall, they all found their way into the chook mansion, we didn’t even have to round them up. When I closed the flap it was immediately lights out and they stopped talking. I was surprised, as they came from different pens. I would have expected a bit of fighting over the best places on the roosts. Obviously there is a comfortable space for all of them. At half past seven this morning I heard them getting restless and I let them out again, hoping there would be some eggs. Though I was told they might take a break for three or four days while they were settling in. Sure enough the laying boxes were empty. Then after breakfast three of the brown hens were hanging suspiciously around the chook house. When I looked again later one of the boxes contained three eggs. How exciting! Good girls. The two black ones we have are too young to lay. The rest are heritage breeds that don’t lay as much as the brown ones, so no surprises there.
Today the chickens arrived. Their job is to dig over and fertilise our backyard. I am sure they will have a good life here. As you can see in the pic, our garden is rather overgrown. I am in love with them already. They are gorgeous animals and I am looking forward to keeping a chick diary. I might even start a new blog with chick pics only. Of course, the Dedes would be very unhappy if I started something new and neglected them in favour of some chickens. I can’t do that and I won’t do that. Over the last few months I have been working hard to get some gigs lined up for the Dedes. The week after next I am running two stop motion holiday workshops and I am currently consulting with the Dedes about who will be joining me for those. One of the workshops will be just one afternoon in the Orewa Library with kids between 10 and 12. The other one is at the Toi Ora Space and runs for four mornings. Toi Ora is an organisation that provides art workshops for people in support of their mental health and wellbeing. I am really looking forward to this one and I will write more about it in due course.
I also started my new job this week. I was mainly busy with preparations for the classes that will commence next week. Naughty Boy, one of the Lil’Dedes was keen to check out my new workplace and pestered me all week to take him with me. I assume he is sick of sitting in the art cupboard of my studio, which is – needless to say – a very messy place. I was a bit worried that all the others might want to come as well, should I give in to his request. But he was so persistent that I finally caved in on Friday. He was whistling all the way to work, but then when we arrived, he took just one look at the desk and decided immediatly it wasn’t worth it. At home he told the others my new place was terribly sterile, not even a single leaf of paper on the desk. Certainly not a place where the Dedes would flourish. Phew!
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