Monday, June 4, 2012

Confessions of a series of bombed puppets (serious title)

So I completely bombed on a series of puppets that I was engineering. A few months ago, I aspired to make butterfly puppets-gorgeous, soaring mechanical flying creatures, using telephone wire, hanger wire, thick copper jewelry wire and beautiful, textured fabrics. Only now do I giggle when regarding the botched and defective puppets, but while I was making them, I was beside myself. Hour after hour I labored, burning myself with the glue gun, twisting wire with wire cutters, stretching fabric, believing that whatever prototype I was working on was going to be the one that finally soared. My back ached from hunching over fabric scraps, my mind reeled with glue fumes as I wondered whether I was losing my touch. I created a thinly wired gossamer moth beast that now lives somewhere in my discard box, a misshapen butterfly puppet strapped with safety pins onto a black bra with hanger wire protruding out of the akimbo right wing, and one navy blue amorphous BLOB attached with gangly wires to a badmitton racket that I found on the street. But this morning,thankfully, finally, something happened. After a month and a half of soul searching (Am I JUST A SOCK PUPPET PUPPETEER??? DRAMA!!!)and questioning my career choices, something happened with swing music playing, the sticky rain outside and the quiet of my apartment, shades of green velvet strips and spoon eyeballs...I revisited the realm of verdant puppet possibilities and this is stage one of the resuscitation of the triumphant flying BLOB puppet! If I were talking to my daughters, I would have said all along, "Honey, some art works and some doesn't. The important thing is to know that and to keep on making art...it will become something eventually. Or not." But to really live that as I bombed puppet after puppet and totally messed up a corner of our living room with my wild attempts was a DOOZY. I am grateful for the whole process. Thanks for reading.