Puppets on national television

Every three months, for just one minute, the Life Outside the Box puppets 

are to be seen on Irish National television, during the People's Angelus:

The one minute daily reflective Angelus broadcast on RTÉ One is one of Ireland's longest-running programmes, having been aired daily at 6.00pm since the inception of RTÉ television in 1962.

Ireland has changed enormously over that time and the nature of the broadcasts has changed with it. 

They are now changing again. Since October 2015 New commissioned films create a reflective space for all in the peak-time schedule…  In addition to these commissioned professional films, RTÉ One has designated one slot per week, on Fridays at 6pm, as The People’s Angelus slot.

Still from the Life Outside the Box film

A year on from the project and I am still in awe with the responses to the project and film from the general public, the media, and anyone remotely interested in puppetry, disability, healing arts, creativity, or just a good story.

Thank you all!!

As you can read on the Puppet Blog, the Life Outside the Box project, which I facilitated with my then fellow members of the Irish Wheelchair Association, has been screened in Canada, in our local cinema, and will be screened during the Together! Festival in London on the 9th December. (2:45pm)

It also has also been the catalyst to give talks, and be invited to give future talks at puppet symposium (Cork), conference (Calgary, Canada) and festival (Nottingham).
It brought me back to teaching in my studio and via distant learning, and has been instrumental to the development of my own creative work, like the Reflection Project.

What a journey I am on, and what amazing company I have met along the way.

Johnny Dwyer, the Puppet Reporter of the Life Outside the Box Crew 

• The TV version specially edited for the Angelus can also be seen here
• See the full film (4 minutes) on the  Puppet BLOG

Great adventures from the confines of my house

Life can be curious.

The past month or so, I have been rarely outside the door.
Twice to go to hospital appointments, once to the library, and once to Dungarvan, two weeks ago. An hour buzzing around on my scooter through two shops. Sitting in a cafe waiting for my lift to bring me home again, I had a great difficulty to walk from the chair back to my scooter. About six steps?
It had taken many false starts to actually get out the door, so back on my couch at home, I was pleased I had done a 'normal' thing on a normal Saturday.

While in recovery mode, I received a message via Facebook from a lecturer at Nottingham Trent University to invite me to give a talk at a puppet festival in March ...
Sure! Great!
I nearly got up to pack my bags there and then.

The freedom of my mind...

I did wonder if my brain - my mind - is amazing, or deeply flawed ...

Here I was, ill from one hour on my scooter, a total of about two hours outside my house, and yet I did not see any difficulty with the prospect of going to the UK. Or even to Canada next summer. Another invitation to talk about my puppets...

I know I can do it. I know I can go to the UK. It does however require a lot of planning.

I made it to the family reunion in Holland during the summer. Tough on my health, but so worth it.

The journey the puppets are bringing me on, is just to amazing too dismiss.

Puppets, ME, Disability, health, are all part of my story. 

Although I rarely get outside the door, I am reaching people far beyond my wildest dreams. As if the strings of the puppets are bringing me out into the world again.

* There are contacts with some amazing women who, behind the scenes, are making the experience of life with ME in today's Ireland to the people who need to hear it: Politicians, HSE staff. Researchers, Hospital consultants, OT's, Social Welfare, the public who still believes we are just a little tired...

I am in awe of the power of this very small group. 

* Contacts too with other creatives, who encourage me to keep going. Who trust me to share with them the art of making puppets. Or trust in the creative process in general.

 * Contacts with readers of my books. For example an email from a mother of a young woman severely ill with ME.  ... As I try and motivate and stimulate K to use her sore eyes more, we started putting a new picture in her room each day for her to look at and enjoy. ...  we have been using a new nature picture from the Into the Light box each day.  Her favourite so far has been raindrops hanging from red buds. That one has stayed in her room well beyond its allotted day as she loves it so much... 

* Contacts with puppeteers from around the globe.

* Being supported by friends and family in all sorts of kind ways. Touching each other's lives. Learning from our varied stories.

* And being invited for a radio interview with Bernadette and Stan Phillips on their World in View program. Exactly a year since the interview during the Dis ability ... This Ability Exhibition, which perhaps was one of those pivotal steps in my own adventures of stepping out of the disability/illness box with the help of my puppets...

Listen to the interview here 

(about 15 minutes long)

And in the next few weeks there are more adventures, for which I do not have to leave my house.

• I have a meeting with Senator Grace O'Sullivan to talk about ME, Disability and Puppets. Grace gave a very passionate talk at the Dis ability ... This Ability Exhibition exhibition last year.
• On Friday 1st December Cora Fitzgerald's Cocoon Life Website will go live. And I have the honour to be their first guest with a (pre-recorded) podcast.  'Cocoon life is a website about inspiring Journeys, Life lived With Purpose'.

• 

  image /text for the Cocoon Life podcast recording
  

• Also on Friday 1st December, the special version of the Life Outside the Box will be screened on Irish National television. RTE 1 6 pm, during the People's Angelus.
• On the 8th December our puppet film will be shown during the Together! Festival in London.
• I will be going out to meet prospective new readers during the Villierstown Craft fair Sunday 26th November!

Phew.

So, although life can be hugely challenging at times, it is also amazingly rewarding. And curious.

Thank you ALL for coming along on my adventures through life.

I could not have done it without you.

Don't forget the sale which is on at the moment on my website and at my studio. 

And during the Villierstown Craft fair Sunday 26th November.

20% discount on books and prints during November, 10% during first two weeks in December.

 

Two puppets, made by my students, portraying huge individuality.

Well, Louise and Pascale finished their puppets!

(Jackie, was unable to join us, so images of her puppet later).

Dedication!

The two puppet makers were in my studio for over 6 hours,

to work on the final stages of their puppets.

Adding hair, hat, paint, strings, and hang on crosses.

Both these puppets came together in the end through team effort.

Beautiful.

I was in the studio on and off, and felt like a proud "Granny"

to see both puppets being walked into my house.

Their first steps into our world.

The finished puppets by
Louise Clarke and Pascale De Coninck

Both will add more to their work.

Louise's tree-lady, will be accompanied by a tree, of which the branches will move the puppet. Hopefully another collaboration with artist Dominic Fee.

Pascale's Puppet will be holding - and using- a bow and arrow. The mechanism to make this work, will have to be figured out after the bow and arrow are made.

But for now, these puppets are sharing their beauty, their individuality with us all.

What an amazing journey it was!

Thank you Louise, Pascale and Jackie for allowing me to be your guide.

I will write another post when the puppets are fully finished, as well as updates on Jackie's and Greg's Puppets. 

The distant learning class is continuing, and alway open to new students. Contact me to hear more about this. And the next studio class is starting at the end of November. Fully booked, but if you are interested in a course during 2018. Please contact me.

So beautiful!

Proud Mammies

Final touches

Beauty does not come without pain...

This is how my studio looked when I left for a rest

My amazing students cleared up the studio
after finishing their class. What a lovely surprise.

Both proud mammies brought in their 'newborns'
(as Anne Palmer called them.
Anne made a Japanese Dancer in my studio)
to show me, while I rested on the couch.

On another exciting note:

• The Life Outside the Box puppet film will be screened at the Together! Festival of Disability Arts in London on the 9th December. Read about it HERE
• And I have been invited to give a talk, and be part of a panel about puppetry, disability and health, at the Nottingham Puppetry Festival, in March of next year. And at the Puppet Power festival in Calgary, Canada in June.  Who knows!

Painting puppet heads

From left to right - puppet heads by:
Corina, Jackie, Pascale, Louise
They all have their story to tell!
Although we all started in the same way-
with a stick and strip of cotton -
the heads are taking on their individual character,
every single step of the process.

It was a day of painting at the studio last week.
One more step to bring the puppets - created by my students - alive

heads-hands-feet-shoes...

I am looking forward to see them all assembled and dressed and moving like puppets. Last class next Monday. So proud of what has been created.

In the meantime, Greg - my distant learning student - is working away of Johnny Toes, and even took up painting again, and baking, and playing music. Read his story HERE 

Further reading:

• More about the Puppet making workshop, see HERE
• More about my own puppets, see HERE

Little Wings Books and Prints offers for Christmas 2017

“Corina has a great capacity to help others with her work.”   Tobi Zausner, PhD, LCSW, Writer and Therapist. USA To share the wisdom of the many authors quoted in  Into the Light,  there is a 20% cashback offer on the cost of books* and prints on orders placed during November 2017. Or 10 % between 1-15 December. (*all Corina Duyn's books Offers in form of refund via paypal) Start Shopping Into the Light - book in a box   “Into the Light is not just an ordinary book, it is a deeply spiritual, inspirational work. The story of challenges overcome through courage; the story of fear overcome by hope, the story of darkness overcome by light, and that comes right through it. It makes for an extraordinary presentation.”   Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy. Social innovator and Author “The words in this book – Into the Light- are from the heart. They are realisations - rather than ideas. They are a beautiful kind of resource…" Author Michael Harding  Order your books now» Other available books through this offer areSnapshots; Cirrus Chronicles; Flying on Little Wings; Life Outside the Box. Into the Light  Prints A selection of 24 limited edition A4 Prints with quotes and images from Into the Light.   View and purchase here »

'Reflection' puppets are ready to face the world

"Suddenly" my 'Reflection' Girls are done
(apart from attaching their strings to the crosses)

     

They went from this about 6 months ago
(one head made 4 years ago)...

to this...

to this...

to this...

becoming impatient...

At every step in the making, painting, and dressing up, they took on more of their personalities.

They talk... or so it seems...

According to Christine Fenton, the girls are discussing travelling to the the screening of 
Unrest in Dublin. 
A film about the realities of life with ME
Screening at Trinity in Dublin 9th November
and also at the Cork Film Festival 19th November
and as far as I know it will also be screened in Galway. 

Further reading and links

• For information on puppet making classes, please see HERE
• The Reflection Puppets will Dance, with the help of Artist Dominic Fee
• Puppetry and Disability
• Puppets and my life with M.E.