A 5 year Anniversary at the Warner Library!

These pictures are from my first public puppet show in May 2008: Today, as I was setting up for my Spring Puppet show in the children's room at the Warner Library, I realized that my first public puppet show occured in that same space, almost exactly 5 years before! I had planned a Mother's Day tribute show for May 2008, and Patty Cohn, the children's librarian at the Warner Library, gave me a green light to try my hand at public puppeteering. Dressed in my Wonder Woman costume, my sister in law Kate holding my four month old daughter in a pouch, I gave it my all and began the journey. It's cool having markers-remembering how it felt to do that show-how many months and late nights it took me to plan the show, using store-bought Folkmanis puppets, having a fussy baby to watch out of the corner of my eye and being covered in sweat as I juggled the throngs of kids and the newness of performing. I remember feeling so vulnerable after that show.

A million dollars

After a weekend of performing-Saturday with the Bossy Frog Band and Sunday as Jilly Puppets, I feel like a million dollars. I am filled with so much positive feeling about what I do and the many gifts that it brings, that I might as well be sitting here surrounded by piles of glittering gold. Being with the children and their families, whether it's in my six foot Bossy Frog costume or in a goofy Jilly Puppets get-up, means the world to me. I get to dance, sing, play, tell stories in all sorts of ways, teach valuable information, and learn about what motivates people to laugh-what brings people together to share in communal experiences. I am going to bed tonight feeling so rich, so full, and so blessed to have such dynamic,zesty,unique, and life-enriching work.

Spring puppets

I took a short hiatus from focusing on my puppet business to take a Dance Education Laboratory class in the city, at the 92nd Street Y. The class, DEL, was time consuming and wonderful, I met amazing people and had an adventure every Monday evening. Just the act of heading down to the train station in Tarrytown was an act of faith about how important dancing is in my personal and professional life. The DEL class is wrapping up in two weeks. I hope to springboard into choreographing a piece that's been bubbling around in my limbs. Whenever I stop moving, it comes up and forces my mind to explore new movement options. I put down whatever I am doing and dance. But what's kinda cool is that just as DEL is coming to a close, I have started back with puppet show season! Last week I had four puppet shows and I could see that they were all profoundly influenced by what I have learned in the class. Being surrounded by teachers, by master educators and people who really think about how to impart learning in the most holistic, gentle, exciting and fun way has really rubbed off onto how I view and produce my puppet shows. Due to the nature of the beast, a puppet show has a huge improvisational element. Like, when it's freezing out and I can't strum my ukulele because my fingers are numb...then what? Or when twenty more kids show up to the show than planned-what do I do? Yesterday a lawn-mower was blasting in the near-distance. How can I still do a peaceful and connective show with that WHIRRRRRR sound behind me? Staying calm and creative is the only way to appoach these situations, and it's part of what makes being a puppeteer so fulfilling. I plan each show meticulously, just as I would prepare a lesson plan for a classroom, but my mind is always prepared to hover above the plan and improvise to meet the situation. Like when my hands were numb with the whipping Spring winds on Saturday, I could still bang on my drum, so I extended what I had planned for the drum 'call and response' section. And then I used the soft plushy worm puppet as a mitten to sing “The Teacher Song!” With the lawn-mower, I just brought in extra amplification, and with 20 extra kids I pulled up a game where the kids got to talk into the microphone. Keeping focused on my ultimate goal, whether it's communicating an Earth Day theme in a silly and fun way or helping a birthday girl enjoy her birthday show, is my essential focus. And getting there is the improvisational part!

Dance on, woman!

Over the past year, it has become pressingly essential for me to acknowledge how massive dancing is in my life. Dance has become my vehicle for exploring the world, for feeling authentic, for sharing my creative voice, for experiencing joy. For years, I have been moving towards having more dance in my puppet shows, but my inner voice still banged loudly in my ear-MORE MORE! I signed up for a choreography class in addition to my technique classes at the Tarrytown Y, performed an original work this summer,(which was extremely gratifying) and still, the voice demanded MORE MORE! "Inner self!"-I fought back-"I am 42 years old! Why are you pushing me towards dance! I am old, old, old! How is this logical?" Obeying the forcefulness of my inner compass, I found a 'Fundamentals in Dance Education' laboratory class at the 92nd St. Y, a six month course that meets from 7:30-9:30 on Monday nights. This means that I leave my apartment at 5:37 and arrive back at the apartment at 10:40 to walk the dog, staggering with exhaustion. The course is radically fabulous-it is not to be missed-it is masterful and mind-blowingly awesome, AND it takes me a full day to recover from my night-time excursion to the Upper East Side. I co-faciliate an artist's support network at The Purple Crayon in Hastings, where I genuinely believe in everyone else's genious, everyone else's right to grow and to expand, to be confident and OUT THERE with their artistic selves. Even with this fabulous supportive atmosphere and my extreme positivity, I still would sit in my car after meetings and do battle with my pesky inner voice: HOW CAN I CALL MYSELF A DANCER? I WAS NOT CLASSICALLY TRAINED! HOW CAN I BE GOOD ENOUGH??! Meanwhile, I continue working on a new dance piece. I am learning the slow painful process of revising and discarding unnecessary movements. I continue to push myself in technique classes. I am not giving up, because the cost of letting my fears run the show is far too high for me. Today, I may have just figured out a way to begin teaching dance. "Yes it hurts when buds burst. there is pain when something grows. " -Karen Boyle

Creative Vibes

I have a friend for whom this is the "Summer of Great Transition." For me, I have dubbed this extremely hot and humid time, "The Summer of Tremendous Creativity". I keep imagining myself as a crayoned outline picture in a coloring book, my whole interior covered with a waxy, multi-colored, layered crayon landscape-you know that side to side light and breezy crayon style? I also imagine myself as a (metaphorical) paint jug, filled to the very top of my head with thick dripping rainbow paints.(My brother affectionately calls these my "swirly vortex" images.) Filled with colors and textures and music and movement, I do feel lucky, blessed, joyously at home. Check out this Bossy Frog video-Much fun is this??? *I conducted a puppet residency at Ardsley Country Club Day Camp this summer which culminated in a puppet extravaganza to the tunes of "Party Rock Anthem," "Moves like Jagger," "Call me," "Star Wars" and the "Scooby Doo" theme! (I got a giggle every time I heard the music that the kids chose.) After 5 workshops, the final show was fabulous-sweaty and exuberant; It was delightful to watch the kids enjoying themselves and presenting their puppets. I am so pleased to have met the director, Laura Poiss, who is a rockstar educator and artist. *More dance-Ooooh, I am working on a piece at the Tarrytown Y with Stephen Ursprung. Stephen has been leading me through writing and choreography exercises and I am developing a very personal piece (oooh,I love it so much). I am going to try a costume concept tonight! Who knows what the next step will be...it's a delicious mystery. So there's also been the artist support network (OpenCanvas) at The Purple Crayon that Naomi, Sarah and I launched (stay tuned for more information about the first meeting in September!), attending the Hip Hop festival in Philadelphia (PLEASE ask me to tell you about that-I love talking about Illadelph), my new dance teachers at the Y (a beautiful adventure), getting my frog on with tons of Bossy Frog performances (hip hop,banjo and frog costumes are a perfect match, in case you were wondering) and a Butterfly show coming up this Saturday at the Greenburgh Nature Center.

Thank you to all of the muses out there...sending creative vibes right back out there to you. Love, xojilly

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.

SPRING 2012

Hello. It's fitting that I am working on a BUTTERFLY show for the Greenburgh Nature Center, because I truly feel like I too am in a period of metamorphosis as an artist. I am attracted more and more to the dance world and am searching for ways to bring more choreography into my puppet shows. Last weekend, I began working on a piece, all dance-and created a fairy-like costume. I don't know whether I will construct wings for the dance piece, or leave the movements to speak for themselves. But people come to my shows expecting to see puppets, so I am attempting to craft a whole new set of puppets for the rest of the show. I made one prototype butterfly puppet with wire and diaphanous fabric; I have A LONG way to go before it's breathtaking! I am planning to include more instruments too for the children-I am smitten with a new affection for the tambourine-and definitely want to play around with it's sound and movement. But it's still all mostly in the inspiration ether-the puppets are somewhere in my unconscious, waiting to be crafted. I have a whole new batch of silky fabric from a friend, and spankin' new fabric scissors too (!) so I have the tools. I just need 5 straight hours of inspired art time, lots of music playing and dancing while I glue gun and try not to burn myself with the boiling hot glue. Hope to see you at some Spring and Summer shows! peace, love and METAMORPHOSIS!

Jilly PS-A special shout out to Ossining's Earth Day celebration. Thanks so much for having me. What a beautiful event.