The astonishing world inhabited by puppets

Attending the Puppet Symposium  last week was like stepping into a completely new world. And yet when I entered it, and moved about with open eyes and ears, I realised I had been part of this amazing, creative, fun, healing, and astonishing place for pretty much all my life. 

I just did not know it...

Persephone Sextou and puppet Johnny Dwyer having a private moment.
 (I am allowed to witness this...)

Johnny's Ancestors

While writing my paper/ my presentation for the Symposium, I looked back at the dolls and puppets I created in my life. I made dolls clothes on an Singer hand sewing machine around the ages of 7, or 8. Made my first doll at the age of ten. Borrowed doll making books throughout my teens from the library, and bought my first book at the age of 16. My first ever puppet, a clown, was created from this book. I still use the puppet body design in today's classes! Nearly 40 years on...

Fantasy Folk

Moving to Ireland saw the start of my Fantasy Folk Artist Dolls and Puppets. I had my work in shops, and has solo exhibitions. I work on Private and corporate commissions. Including the Waterford Crystal one, I wrote about a while back. A puppet/animated related work was that of Ballycardool  by Jimmy Marukami. I also taught puppet making with two young art students from Finland, and in a group home, in the months before illness changed my life in 1998.

Puppet Power

During this work at the group home with teenagers, I realised the Power of Puppets. I think there were about 6 youngsters in the group. All Very Eager to work with me. We had made the heads of the puppets and had started on the hands. One young lad of about 13 had made a clown's head. Gorgeous. Funny. Just like himself. But when he made the hands, they were closed fists.
Powerful stuff.

I still feel bad for leaving these youngsters without finishing their puppet. I was too ill to even sit up, not to mind teach. 19 years later I still want to work with them. They probably have kids of their own by now, but if they read this, please get in touch.

Moving on

Puppets made their return in a big way when I started to facilitate the Life Outside the Box Puppet project with fellow members of the Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA) in 2015. This project catapulted me into the Puppet Power World, and into that of the Puppet Symposium. I just didn't see it coming! 

Yes, I know I was invited to talk about the project. And yes, I was a little scared to say my bit amongst researchers, and speakers from all over the world. People who are involved with puppetry for years, and know what they are talking about.

As it turned out, I also know what I am talking about. 

I know the journey I made from childhood in dolls and puppets, from being an artist, witnessing the powerful ways puppets can explore challenges in our lives. I have seen it. I have lived it. 

I just didn't realize that what I have been doing in my work, especially working with others with disabilities, while living with disability myself, represents a unique experience. 

Puppetry and disability

One of the first speakers Moira Jenkins, a lawyer, puppeteer, and lecturer, talked about the UN Convention of the rights of a person with disabilities - Which by the way is still not ratified by the Irish government - to be involved in the arts. More than just participation. We have every right to be respected as the originator and creator of our own work. (Article 30(2)  Including puppetry. 
Arts as a practice, not therapy.

I was nodding like a lunatic at so much what Moira was saying. Especially when it came to those horrible terms like 'service user' which I was labeled when a member of the IWA... Also when it came to context providers not just content providers. I created the context with my project, and so did my fellow members! Proud of that.

Puppets as story tellers 

Over the two days I filled my head with images, and words, and stories, and opportunities. Some I listened to at the symposium, others via Skype while lying on my hotel bed. Thank you Emma for providing this option for me. 

I was in awe with the presentation by Andrea Markovits from Chile, who talked about the puppets and traumatic memory project. Exploring the  pain felt by the public of the past regime in Chile, the families of the disappeared, the tortured. Silent puppets. Beautiful puppets. Powerful stories.

There were speakers from Japan, UK, Brazil, Germany, Finland, Portugal, Ireland, and Costa Rica (I think).
Subjects were: Well being, Disability, Hospital and care settings, and mental health. But even within these there was such a variety of subjects.

The speakers were either researchers in the field of puppetry, for example Persephone Sextou's 'Theatre for one' with children in hospitals, to Caroline Astell-Burt who teaches at the London school of puppetry. Antje Wegener who uses puppets with kids dealing with trauma. Or puppeteers with their own story to tell. (See all names here).  I loved how Oscar Goldszmidt worked with youngster with cerebral palsy, and enabled them to manipulate puppets...

The talks that touched me most were the ones where puppets transformed the lives of their makers. Most of the time by surprise. Puppets made Emma Fisher come out as disabled. A bit like coming out as LGBT. It informed her thesis about puppets and disability, which was initially about others with disability. For some the puppets they created supported them during mental health challenges. For example Kate James-Moore, and Aaron Jean Crombe. I think it was Joni-Rae Carrack, who said 'Puppets can be both objects and subjects',  in her talk about anxiety. Kate said that 'puppetry saved her life'.

The whole experience left me filled with images, and thoughts, and questions of where to go from here? It feels like there is no going back now. No going back into my box!

To me this photo says it all:
Puppet Johnny Dwyer and myself 
stepping into life...

© Photo by Nik Palmer  of Noisy Oyster
More photos by Nik see HERE

What next?

I had the pleasure of spending some time with Marisa Latimer after the symposium. She told me about her travels with puppets. Through college, working with puppeteers, stories from Japan. Expanding on the world I kind of knew existed.
Listening to her, I remembered the exact location of a puppet theatre in the city of Haarlem, where I lived 8 years before moving to Ireland. I always wanted to go in. I never did. 
I also remembered a very vivid dream of a kind of underground puppet theatre/museum. I remembered that I had copied puppet making books from the library over 20 years ago. How I have one business card with a puppet sitting by a pile of books, for at least 19 years.
That I was part of the puppet festival during a doll making week in France the year I got ill. 

I had communications with Kate, Aaron, Emma and Perspehone. And a meeting with Moira. Which has led to the invitation to give guest lectures at CIT, and a collaboration about Disability Rights and Puppetry. And other future possibilities for my work...
It is all hugely exciting. 
I am aware my body might not (yet) be as excited as my head, but I am certainly going to take small steps into this world which has been presented to me. Loud and Clear.
I hear you!!

Puppets have been part of my life. A hidden part of my life. Deep in my psyche.

They, and me, are ready to come out and play!!

To finish this amazing week, I learned that The life outside the box project was also mentioned in a Journal..., see link below.
The puppet making classes are going well, and I have already four more students lined up.
And I am now a member of the Irish UNIMA (International Union of Puppets, a non-governmental organisation affiliated to UNESCO)

Phew.

Most of the speakers and visiting puppets at the symposium.
Mad bunch!

Further reading and links

• some more images of the symposium on the Puppet Blog
• Symposium Images by Nik Palmer
• Article in Journal which mentions the project