On my "bucket list" for years has been to participate in a marionette carving workshop at Puppets in Prague. I'm on their mailing list and have dreamed of a summer when I could go to Europe and learn a new skill. Well, for the last two weeks, PIP came to me! Back in May, they advertised a "zoom" workshop and I was curious to try it out. The format made a lot of sense and, as I think we are all learning right now, virtual opportunities are increasing access. In person experiences are are just...different. As I learned transitioning to remote instruction for Costume Crafts in March, there are certain hands on things that are much better in person and some instructional content that is just lost online, but pandemic or not, I wasn't getting to Prague anytime soon and was delighted to learn something new!
Our workshop schedule began with both sections meeting (12 students total) for a history and design lesson. Then we had 10 days to develop our puppet design and have a video consultation with Mirek and Leah at PIP before Mirek created our kits to ship out. I've never made a marionette before. I started with this rough sketch and then tuned the design to the specifications of the medium. My first decision was whether it would be a string puppet or wire puppet. For the wire puppet, I would need access to tools to bend the rigid wire (gas torch), so I settled on the string design. During our consultation Mirek suggested adding a leather joint at the waist so she would have lots of movement.
While waiting for our kits to arrive, I ordered chisels and sharpening supplies, and attended their 2 session workshop on sharpening and basic carving. There were more than 80 people zooming in from all over the world! It was amazing.
I hadn't realized how much I'd been craving to create something. With shows postponed and cancelled and many, many meetings to figure out what will happen next year, it was so refreshing to be making something with my hands and have deadlines to anchor some creative work. It was also wonderful to meet other people from all over North America and develop a sense of community with this one thing in common (though there were lots of other theatre artists including two other costume designers).
Our boxes of puppet parts arrived the week before we were scheduled to begin. The parts were cut out of linden wood and arrived trimmed on a band saw. Then we met for 1 1/2 hour lessons with drawings and demonstrations to guide us. Each class was recorded which was very helpful to reference once I got to work. Our first day was about carving the head. I was a bit tentative at first as carving is a no-going-back-subtractive medium, but once I understand how deep I could go, (and how much lower I needed to move my eyes even though my design is quite stylized...third time was the charm), I really dug in. Day two, we learned about the details of carving the features, and day three we learned about hands. That weekend, was all about carving, carving, carving. Only 2 band-aids!
I took a break on the fine details and developed my confidence by working on the rest of the arms, rounding and tapering the pieces. I got as far along as I could over the weekend before meeting altogether for our second week of lessons.
To be continued...
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