This is another shot from the opening. I love these two. They look like they have been playing together forever. But no, it was an impromptu performance. The man on the left is Fred and the little guy is one of John Rew’s puppets. The hand at the top belongs to John. I will have to write about him another time. He did these amazing puppet circus performances on the day. He is such a diehard puppeteer… While on break from the circus performances his puppets still mingled with the audience.
Uhuuu, I haven’t posted for a long time. The reason might be that the blog is called Dede puppets and I am currently going astray with other types of puppets. These here are two marionettes who are currently rehearsing for a busking gig we want to perform at the grand opening of puppet festival in August. You might notice, that I pinched L’artiste’s tunic for the ghosty figure. That seems a bit nasty, eh, as L’artiste clearly needs his tunic for confidence. But I let you in on a secret, he actually has six or seven of them in his wardrobe. So he won’t notice one missing and I just love the material for it’s colourfulness. I am not entire happy with the two characters, but only rehearsal will bring out the flaws. The bird character is too cute for my personal liking, apart from this I don’t know where the design came from. I made it from a picture that was stored in my memory. I must have seen wooden birds of that type long time ago. He would work better if he was wooden, as marionettes rely on gravity. This one is made of dry-felted balls. To weigh his feet down I glued some old coins at the bottom, for good luck. I deemed this appropriate for a busking bird and I tell you what, he tap dances like a pro.
Life is pretty frantic at the moment. On Thursday the sponge puppet film will be released. Finally I am all set, the poster is printed… But you know how it is, in the end there are always a million things to attend to. This afternoon, a reporter comes round to interview me about the story… On a different note, the photographer of Artstation must have been really taken by Court Jester, as he immediately posted a picture on their facebook page . Obviously Court Jester did a good job, he made the puppeteer laugh really hard.
In the meantime, I continue stabbing wool tuffs to turn them into little sculptures. This one here is called Keith, as a tribute Keith Haring. If he had felted, I am pretty sure his figures would have looked somewhat like this.
Yes, Witch caused quite a stir in the Dede world with her project. There is a lot of interest in how it is supposed to work and when the book will be published, and how she will publish it. Question after question. Unfortunately Witch shies away from publicity and would rather like to make the kitchen a no-go zone for everyone while she is in there making her concoctions. She absolutely hates other Dedes standing around watching her. Foreign Correspondent managed to intercept her between the fridge and the oven yesterday and asked her for an interview. Witch said she is far too busy and continued walking. Foreign Correspondent just followed her around until she said if he gave her some written questions she would answer them when she finds the time. This answer was good enough for Foreign Correspondent and he finally let her get on with the job. I am pretty sure he will have the questions ready by dinner time tonight. :)
Thank God it’s Friday. At least that is what Foxy Lady seems to think. We have to give the little printing press back today. So Foxy Lady was frantic all week, day and night, coming up with promotional material and printing flyers. It is starting to pay off, slowly but surely. However, the poor little thing is totally exhausted now. I am not surprised.
Sidekick, the alien, was very keen helping Foxy Lady in the beginning, but the novelty wore off quickly and he wandered off home. Cath O’Brien has send me this image of her creation. He must have felt pretty smug about his achievements last week.
Yesterday we had another workshop and the saga between Magician and Devil continues. Who has the right to wear the spokesperson badge? Devil is working extremely hard to establish himself in his new job, but Magician doesn’t tire of interferring. At least some of the other Dedes are starting to get so over the feud and are happy to give Devil a hand. But see for yourself…
I asked Harvey what he enjoyed most at the cafe yesterday. He didn’t have to think long. He said, he loved that he was taken seriously. Everybody at the lunch valued his view point and at no time was he given the feeling he is just a silly puppet who shouldn’t have an opinion. I have to say, he did engage people in serious discussions, more so than he does at home. Mr XL, his sponsor, can be really proud of him. I wonder if it would be beneficial if the Dedes got out more. I have to put this forward to the Dede committee. But first I am looking forward to the workshop this afternoon, where people visit us at our studio to create a new film and we are expecting one very very special guest.
Today was a special day for Harvey. He went out for lunch to meet up with his sponsor Mr XL. In the old days they saw each other every day, as Mr XL had his office right next to ours. But then we moved out of the building and so did Mr XL. I wasn’t aware until recently that Harvey and Mr XL are in frequent phone contact to exchange the latest tips on the horses. Mr XL let it slip when I arranged the meeting, and it finally explains my exorbitant phone bill. Mr XL is apparently very lucky with the horses. Harvey isn’t. Now I am not quite sure whether Mr XL isn’t forthcoming with the right tips or if Harvey isn’t listening properly, though big enough ears he has!
Out of the blue, Devil showed up. And can you believe it? He had Lizzie and Lil’Sculpture in tow. Phew, what a relief. But at the same time, everybody was very, very angry with Devil as he obviously knew all along where the two missing puppets had been hiding out.
Surprisingly, Sunny played totally cool now and said he knew all along they would not have met with an untimely end as the sturdy polystyrene man will outlast any Dede. But having observed him all week, I believe his change of mind only came after ArtistatExit0 pointed out that Lil’Sculpture’s distant cousin, the plain polystyrene coffee cup, will last for two hundred years. Right!
Everybody else stormed towards Devil and wanted to know what happend. Devil, back in a confident spokesperson mode announced he found himself a new job. From now on he will be the spokesperson of the trash puppets in the neighbourhood. Over the last two weeks the three of them had nutted out what they will to do in future. Life under the regime of Magician was too dangerous for trash puppets, so they had to set up their own union and run their own workshops. They have invited a very special guest to their next workshop and it will be on Saturday the 22 Feb in the studio…
“Hang on,” Magician interrupet at this point. “The Dedes have a workshop on the 22nd, the studio space is taken!”
“No it is not” Devil replied calmly and produced a booking sheet from under his robe “Here, see for yourself, we have made a booking for the space, where is your’s?”
At this point Mouse turned fire-engine red and said under her breath “I wondered where the booking sheet had got to.”
It so happens that the first anniversary of the day when Sunny created Lil’ Sculpture is approaching. You might remember it was last year on Waitangi Day when Sunny, the wannabe artist, all of a sudden got frantically busy and came up with a cute little figure. I was very miffed with him, as he actually didn’t come up with the concept but just copied the work of Artistatexit0. If you can’t remember, here is the story. Anyway, Sunny isn’t the most reliable Dede. He is so involved in his own little world, trying to create his 15 minutes of fame, that he usually forgets about anybody else and doesn’t keep in touch. Funnily enough, when he realised that it is Waitangi Day this week, he all of a sudden remembered that Lil’ Sculpture almost made him famous and he wanted to go and look his little mate up and reminice about the good old times (They weren’t actually that good… but I won’t enlighten him about this).
He got a big surprise when he arrived at the bookshelf, where Lil’ Sculpture has been residing like forever, to find the little man was nowhere to be seen. Worse, there was no-one else around, no neighbours, that Sunny could ask about the whereabouts of his creation. He tried to keep a brave face, but I could see that he was very distressed about the disappearance of his artwork.
dedepuppets 