Handmade Portrait: Stacey Gordon

Etsy profiles puppeteer/builder Stacey Gordon in their latest "Handmade Portrait".

The latest video in Etsy's Handmade Portraits series profiles puppeteer Stacey Gordon (aka Staceyrebecca). Stacey's well-known in the online puppetry community and on Etsy where she sells some of the coolest finger puppets you'll ever see. As a puppeteer Stacey's performed extensively at the Great Arizona Puppet Theatre in Phoenix and is very active in the improv comedy world too as both an actress and puppeteer.

Special thanks to Tara at Etsy for sending this in!

Monday Morning Inspiration: Christmas Puppet Gift Guide

Christmas is on it's way! If you're looking for a great puppet gift to give this holiday take a look at these offerings from puppet builders here in Canada:

Banjo Puppets



I love Banjo Puppets' "Gumball" and "Popcorn" puppets, they look great and they're very affordable. To see what they have that's currently available check out Banjo puppets on Etsy.

Website: www.banjopuppets.com

Kirkham Puppets



Kirkham Puppets makes beautiful, handcrafted hand puppets, finger puppets, marionettes and rod puppets that have a lovely, old-fashioned look to them.

Blog: kirkhampuppets.blogspot.com

Knoggin Knitting



Knoggin Knitting makes hand puppets as well as other knitted/felted creations such as soft toys and wearable flowers. What's really cool about Knoggin puppets is that they're made using a technique called "fulling" - this means first knitting 100% wool then felting it and finally hand sewing into various fuzzy creations. The final puppet is durable with a fantastic texture. You can customize your own Knoggin puppet by choosing the colour and type of embellishment (antlers, antennae, dreadlocks, long floppy ears, small ears, various tails - whatever you like!).

Website: knogginknitting.etsy.com
Blog: knoggin.wordpress.com

Open Door Designs



Open Door Designs makes puppets that are designed for smaller hands that are soft and easy to work with. They're also machine washable (a nice bonus if you're buying puppets for kids!). They also make portable puppet theatres and if you live in or near Toronto they have a retail location in the city's West End.

Website: www.opendoordesigns.ca

RoRo Art



Ah, the noble sock! It warms and comforts us; supports us and gets us where we need to be; it fuels our imaginations & leads us into adventure! RoRo Art makes traditional sock monkeys, sock animals and (of course) some very cool sock puppets.

Website: www.roroart.com

A Hoggworks Wedding

Congratulations go out to Hoggworks' Brian Hogg and Madelyne Hilker, who got hitched over the weekend! As longtime PuppetVision readers know, Brian is the mad genius behind the dotBoom and Ask Palpatine puppet podcasts and Madelyne (officially credited on the dotBoom web site as "Executive Ass-Kicking Coordinamatron") is a puppet builder and costumer on most Hoggworks projects.

Best wishes to the happy couple; here's hoping they have a very long and happy life together.

Rest in Peace Kermit Love

Big Bird, director Helmut Hermann, Samson and Kermit Love on the set of On the set of Sesamstrasse (the German-language version of Sesame Street).

I just got the sad news that Kermit Love passed away last Saturday at the age of 91. Kermit was an incredible puppet builder and costume designer who was long associated with the Muppets. Kermit worked with marionettes as a child, which led to a career working on Broadway shows and eventually collaborating with Jim Henson. He was one of the key people responsible for refining the look of the classic Sesame Street Muppets; probably his most famous work was building Big Bird.

Carol Spinney (Big Bird's puppeteer) often tells a famous anecdote about how Kermit convinced him to stick with the Muppets when he was ready to leave. After his first year on Sesame Street, Carol felt he wasn't making enough money to live in New York and planned to tell Jim Henson he was quitting the show, but Kermit convinced him to give it another month. The next week Big Bird was on the cover of Time magazine and Carol never had another thought about leaving.

Kermit also worked on a number of successful non-Muppet puppetry projects, including the Great Space Coaster and Snuggles the Fabric Softener Bear. Although he was primarily a behind-the-scenes figure, he stepped in front of the camera to play Willy the hot dog vendor on Sesame Street for many years in the 1970s and `90s.

The puppetry world has lost another giant.

Rest in Peace Stan Winston

Special effects master Stan Winston died Sunday night after a long battle with cancer.

Wow, I just heard the awful news that Stan Winston passed away Sunday night at his home in Malibu after a long battle with cancer. He was 62 years old.

Even if you don't know Stan's name, chances are you know his work. His talented team of artists and puppeteers have created some of the most iconic movie creatures of all time; Transformers, the robots in Terminator, the Alien Queen in Aliens, the giant T-Rex in Jurassic Park and so much more. Stan won several Oscars for his work in visual effects (Aliens, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park) and make-up (Batman Returns). One of his very last jobs was devising the suits for this summer's blockbuster Iron Man and you'll see more of his work in upcoming movies like Avatar, Jurassic Park IV, and Terminator 4.

In time when CGI is used for almost everything on screen, people are often surprised to learn that many of the effects in movies like Jurassic Park and Transformers that they assume are computer generated are in fact done live on the set by puppeteers from the Winston studio. Iron Man director Jon Favreau called him "the king of integrating practical effects with CGI," and Stan once summed up his work philosophy as "I don't do special effects. I create characters and I use the tools of special effects necessary to do it."

There is a great video tribute to Stan and his work over at JoBlo.com.

Rest in peace Stan Winston. You'll be missed.

Monday Morning Inspiration: RoRo's Eclectic Sock Emporium

RoRo's Eclectic Sock Emporium makes beautiful Sock Monkeys and Sock Animals.

Sock Monkeys are one of those things that most people take for granted, but actually have quite a history behind them. For some reason people always seem to confuse them with Sock Puppets and often assume they're one in the same.

There's a lot of Sock Animal makers out there these days, but the best in my opinion is RoRo's Eclectic Sock Emporium - run by Robin Pulfuss, an artist, puppet builder and puppeteer in Toronto - who makes really amazing, really cute and creative Sock Creatures. She also makes and sells a lot of sock-related merchandise including beautiful sock monkey quilts and some awesome sock monkey T-Shirts.

Go have a look around her site and see for yourself!

Tuesday Morning Inspiration: Kirkham Puppets

Kirkham Puppets makes beautiful, handcrafted papier mâché hand puppets.

If you like traditional, hand crafted puppets you'll love the work of Kirkham Puppets. Kelly Kirkham makes some of the most wonderful papier mâché hand puppets and marionettes I've ever seen; photos don't really do them justice.

Kelly is also one of the many puppet builders from right across North America who will be featured on The Puppet Building Podcast, a new video series that will be debuting on PuppetBuilding.com sometime later this year. Here's a short excerpt of the episode featuring Kelly (it was taped late last year):



Also, sorry for the lack of updates over the past few days...I've been really busy and recovering from being sick.

Figurenschneider on German TV

German puppet builder Norman Schneider was recently interviewed by a local television station.

If you read many puppetry blogs than you probably already know that a lot of us puppeteer/bloggers have been oohing and aahing lately over the beautiful work of German puppet builder Norman Schneider and his company Figurenschneider (I blogged about him over at The Bear Town Production Journal a few weeks back). Norman was recently interviewed by a local TV station in Germany. The video is in German, but Norman's work looks great in any language.

Via Thistledown Puppets.

Folkmanis Commercial

Folkmanis recently ran a commercial on video billboards in Times Square.

A really cute commercial for Folkmanis puppets was produced last year and features puppeteers Elaine Kollias, Wendy Morton, Lee Armstrong and Kamela Portuges. It ran on the Geoffrytron Video Billboard in Times Square during the Christmas season and can be found on various video sharing web sites.

If you're not familiar with Folkmanis, it's family business run by Judy, Atis and their son Dan Folkmanis that began as a small home-based business in the 1960s and has grown in to the world's largest puppet manufacturer. They make some of the world's best plush puppets; have a look at the Folkmanis web site and browse their amazing puppet catalog.

Via Puppet U.

Monday Evening Inspiration: Popcorn Puppets

Popcorn puppets are cute and small puppets created by Joel Brubacher.

These Popcorn Puppets are cute little creatures made from clothes pins, some tiny eyes, and scrap fur. They were created by Toronto-based puppet builder and super nice guy Joel Brubacher. More pics and puppets are available on Joel's Banjo Puppets web site.

Flexitoon Puppets Interview

The Boy Brothers were marionettes created by Flexitoon Puppets for the kids' series Shining Time Station.

Sodar Island - a web site for fans of Thomas The Tank Engine - has an interview with Craig Martin of Flexitoon who created the "Juke Box Band" marionettes were that featured on the popular children's TV show in the 1990s. You can see clips from Thomas and other Flexitoon projects on their web site (see previous post).

More on Energy Hogs

An animatronic energy hog gets put through his paces during a motion test.

Energy Hogs (see previous post) was a series of public service announcements from the Alliance to Save Energy featuring animatronic pigs terrorizing an energy inefficient home. It's a cute ad that got a good response here last December so I thought I would mention that I recently discovered that the "Energy Hogs" were made by Animal Makers in California. They're even available to hire!

Monday Morning Inspiration: Kobotaro

The wonderful puppets of Kobotaro are examples of great Japanese design.

I'm a big fan of Japanese design as well as Japanese puppetry and for awhile now I've really dug the puppets of Kobotaro (link goes to a Japanese language site) because I think they are an excellent example of both. Take a look at their work and see if you agree.

New Online Puppet Builder Directory

Build puppets? Looking for puppets? Try the new Puppet Builder Directory at PuppetBuilding.com. It's a totally free service designed to help puppet builders and people looking for puppets find each other.

If you're searching for a puppet builder or places to buy puppets you can browse the categories or search for someone close to where you live. If you're a puppet builder you can add yourself to the directory by going to the link above, registering and adding an entry in the appropriate categories. In addition to your location and contact information you can also upload photos of your work and you can come back and edit/update your listing at any time.

More features like the ability to embed video demo reels in your profile and a global map of puppet builders (similar to the Puppeteer Map on Frappr) will be added soon along with lots of other useful stuff, so keep an eye on PuppetBuilding.com for updates.

More From The Monkey Boys

Monkey Boys Productions in NYC seems to be keeping busy. Take a look at some of the projects they've been doing.

Ed Christie's Carnival

Ed Christie recently chatted up the Washington Post about his work on a new production of Carnival in Washington, D.C.

Over at PuppetBuilding.com I've posted some info about the new production of Carnival currently being staged at the Kennedy Center in Washington. The puppets in the show are by famed Muppet designer/builder Ed Christie. What I really like about them is that unlike the puppets Ed did for a previous production of Carnival in New York, these are distinctly un-Muppet like. Ed recently shared his thoughts with The Washington Post about his work on Carnival, why he was offended by Avenue Q and his take on the state of puppet building (although Ed calls it "a dying art" I think it's probably never been healthier).

Thanks to James for sending this in!

Rest in Peace Roger Mara

Talented American puppeteer and puppet builder Roger Mara has passed away at age 53.

I just read the sad news on Patrick Johnson's Puppet Design Blog that Roger Mara of Snapdragon Puppets has passed away after a short battle with stomach cancer at the age of 53. I never had the opportunity to meet or speak with Roger myself, but I was a fan and admirer of his work. Roger was known to encourage and mentor aspiring puppeteers and was among the very first puppet builders to publish puppet building tutorials on the internet.

Cancer is one of the leading causes of premature death in North America. It's so sad to hear about it claiming another member of the puppetry community. Please consider making a donation to support The Canadian Cancer Society and/or The American Cancer Society and their efforts to fund research and help them find a cure for this terrible disease.

New Puppetry Company: Monkey Boys Productions

Monkey Boys Productions is a brand new company based in New York City founded by Marc Petrosino, Michael Latini, Russell Tucker, and Scott Hitz. They have an impressive list of credits that includes Avenue Q, Book of Pooh, Crank Yankers and the Broadway and national touring productions of Little Shop of Horrors. They currently have a couple of projects on the go including a live stage show based on the Dora the Explorer spin-off Go Diego Go and a T.V. pilot entitled Tiki Island. You can check out their demo reel here.

Thanks to their very talented collaborator James for the link!

James Wojtal, puppet builder

Puppet builder extraordinare James Wojtal has built terrific characters for everyone from the Muppets to Avenue Q to even the U.S. Marine Corps and he's got himself a brand new web site with lots of photos of his work over at MSN Spaces. Be sure to check it out!

23/9/05 Update - James updated his new site again last night with tons of new pictures.