Archives for posts with tag: dede puppets

devil and nokia copy

No, no, no, I am not talking about Devil. He will stay my friend forever. No, I am talking about the old dunger of a mobile phone, my trusted Nokia. I actually loved that thing. As I am sitting in front of the computer all day, every day, I only needed the mobile to send some text messages. For example: “leaving now” or “there in 10 mins”. Everything else could wait. It is actually quite nice to ride on the bus and watch the people around you, and not being tempted to look at emails or the internet. The trusted Nokia was a hand-me down and now I got a new hand-me-down that takes me into the smart phone era. Uhuuuuh. I gratefully accepted the gift, as I can now add instagram to the mix. Devil and I looked at how it all works this afternoon but we weren’t very successful. We had a battle with the mobile and with instagram and with each other. The worst was sharing the images on facebook. We haven’t figured that one out yet, should be easy really…. Anyway, in the end it was too much for Devil. You know how it is when two people who think they know what they are doing, but in fact don’t, try to use the same device. Finally he let me figure it out on my own and wandered off into the garden to watch the grass grow. But when he came back and I was still tearing my hair out, he decided he’d better put the trusted Nokia in a safe place. Who knows. Good on him!

devil shaking hands

I can assure you, the Dedes are wrong, I wasn’t slack in the past months. I just had an energy-sucker of a job. I have recently resigned from this absolute terrible workplace. Let me rephrase that, the job as such wasn’t terrible, to be honest it was my dream job. I loved the students and every minute of teaching, but the school was suffering from a bullying culture, created by a bunch of alcoholics. One of them also showed very strong signs of a cluster B personality disorder. I only realised how much the situation sucked me dry – particularly my creativity – once I had resigned. It was an, how can I say that… “interesting” experience and I am surprised that I got to my age without having come across such a dysfunctional workplace before. Unfortunately I am very loyal person and often stick around longer than I should, because I so believe I can make a difference. Not!

Okay this was my rant for the day!

I hope the Dedes understand now why they have been a little neglected lately. And they were right, they didn’t get as much attention as they deserved. My first peace offering to them was, that I set up a new zazzle product for sale: An apron with the image of  Milky Bar Devil presenting his delicious hamburger bun – the cover shot of The Artist’s Survival Cookbook. My old mate Devil got all emotional after he’d realised I am back on board. He shook my hand and said we should renew our pact. I didn’t know we had one!

Artist's Survival Apron
Artist's Survival Apron by dededesign
Many more kitchen apron designs online at zazzle” apron designs on zazzle

fairy godmother flowers

It’s so typical. First the Dedes insult me, then they send a peacemaker to say they are sorry. Obviously they weren’t entirely serious about sacking me as an artist. I am not sure whether they had a meeting last night, as I was out with real friends. So they had the chance to discuss our relationship without running the risk of me eavesdropping. Anyway, today Fairy Godmother brought me a bunch of flowers she picked from the garden. She apologised for the rude behaviour of her peers yesterday. At first I thought it was very sweet, but then I had the feeling it wasn’t heartfelt. They must realise that they need me as much as I need them. Maybe they are aware that I might drop them if they continue to treat me as if I was their lackey. We are in it together. Sure enough, she then added “but there is a bit of truth in what they said yesterday.”

“I know” I admitted. “But honestly, I don’t know what to do anymore. You guys expect the impossible.”

“Look, I can see where you are coming from” said Fairy Godmother in a conciliatory voice. “I’m in the same boat. Everybody expects me to work wonders too, but it is evident that I have hit a brick wall on more than one occasion” and she pointed to her forehead. “You simply have to keep going!”

“I need more support from you, though. You have all these wonderful ideas but you just dump them on me and you never stick to anything!”

“What do you mean?” Fairy Godmother asked surprised. “Don’t forget we are only puppets!”

Now my dear readers. What do you think? Are they an ungrateful bunch or what? Does anyone have an idea what I should do with them?

moving on

Now we are at this stage again…. the Dedes are getting impatient with me! We had the big book launch, which went very well, thank you. And then they went quiet again. It’s coming up to Christmas and the Dedes will soon have their fourth anniversary. When I reminded them of that and asked what they wanted to do to celebrate it,  Snotty Nosed Prince thew his hands up in disgust. “Four years! We should be more well known by now. What have you done in all those years, girl?” And he had support from the others. “You are useless as an artist, I think we should sack you!” Loudmouth crowed angrily and didn’t waste any time packing my suitcase.

I couldn’t take it anymore, “Well,” I said when I left the studio, “writing a book is the easy part, marketing it is much more difficult.” Personally, I think they should be a bit more supportive and come up with some ideas themselves. After all, I am only one person and there are 64 or so of them.

Carly sent me the images she took at the launch of The Artist’s Survival Cookbook. It was so difficult to whittle them down to a few. I am really impressed. Click on any of the images to enlarge and see the slideshow. (c) carlyphotography.co.nz

 

yeast plait

Today is baking day. We are making a couple of items so we have something to offer before the first bread will come out of the oven tomorrow. Early this morning we started off with a yeast plait, and would you believe it, it got slightly burned around the edges. Cash Cow was very unhappy and her initial thought was, she will have to do it again, we can’t take that thing to our event. Alien, who has a very sunny disposition tries to talk her out of it. In his opinion nobody will notice once it is cut up. I don’t know. I leave them to sort it out :)

I use my oven all the time and it really should not have happend. This of course makes me wonder how the two ovens a the church will behave. I never used them before. We might head towards disaster.

And while I am writing this in a disgruntled mood, can anybody tell me where the spellcheck function in WordPress is hiding now? I can’t find the button, or am I the only one who needs a spell-checker?

packing up

Now I am getting nervous. The book launch is on Saturday and I have made plenty of lists: What I have to take, what I have to buy, what I have to ask others to help me with and so on.

Yesterday I had to swing by the venue again because all of a sudden I realised I don’t even know where the toilets are and then I was told the fridge is broken. So I will have to organise a chilly bin for the milk and the butter. I don’t have one of those.

Today I went to the shops to buy flour. Surprisingly, the 1.5 kg bags were more economical, because they were on special this week. So I bought 8 packets of white flour and 4 packets of whole meal. The lady at checkout was so curious, she couldn’t resist asking me what I was doing :). I knew that will happen. Honestly who would buy 12 packets of flour in one go. It wasn’t really that cheap that it justified hording. So I gave her an invitation to the launch.

The worst thing is, I have absolutely no idea how many people will show up. I have had some replies to my emails and a lot of people said it is a great idea. I didn’t ask for RSVP as it would make it too official and I really would like for people to just drop by.

elemate

The next step up from just telling stories on the blog was the puppet films. Puppets are performers and they want to move. One weekend, when I was home alone, I created the film “Life of an Artist”. It describes the plight of an artist creating work that nobody gives a toss about. Most of us can relate to that, eh.

This lead to me running workshops where a small group of people get together to create impromptu stop motion films. It’s similar to “theatre sports” or “who’s line is it anyway”. I’m sure you get the picture. It’s hillareous. I only facilitate and observe and I put the film together in the end. This picture though, is from a different workshop. This one is called “My friend the Dede.” Here I work with older people to elicit stories. I love that particular picture. The elephant and the lady display such a wonderful rapport.

pig performance

In the third week the candidates had to perform a skills. You know by now Pig can’t do anything but drink. Surprisingly he turned his perceived weakness, the stage fright, into a strength. He performed a modern show called “the unveiling” together with his mate Professor.

Hackled by another Dede he came close to a heart attack. Pigs are prone to that when they are scared. If you want to know what happened you have to read the blog.

pig stage fright

The puppets are an amazing tool to foster understanding. For example Pig. In the first week of the superdede competition Pig froze on stage and it became clear he is an alcoholic, but for no fault of his own. In the competition he told the blog readers is because the farmer fed beer to the mother sow to make farrowing easier. So he basically suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome. It also became clear, that Professor and Pig are co-depended. A very common trait in alcoholics.