The Kids create Stories

It's time to pick up the threads from as far back as July, when I had the brilliant opportunity to act as "puppeteer in residence", working alongside storyteller Xanthe Gresham on a Puppetry and Storytelling workshop in a London secondary school.
Our sessions began with stories from around the world, told by Xanthe in her firey and very interactive way. We then introduced my puppets, and let the pupils loose with an array of puppet-making materials with the aim of creating their own stories.



Watching this process was fascinating. Plastacine, felt and feathers coming together to form beings and creatures, around which stories were constructed which gave funny and moving glimpses into the childrens' diverse backgrounds, interests, dreams and experiences. We hardly offered any facilitation at all - the children became genius puppet makers and storytellers, and we were enthralled by the performances they created.



This memorable experience took place at a very poignant time for me, as I finish my BA (hons) degree in Puppetry and figure out what place puppets and story are to have in the life that now unravels before me.



http://www.xanthegresham.co.uk/

School of Myth Crankie

A pilgrim makes his rites-of-passage journey into the wilderness, and back. A cassette box crankie made for Martin Shaw and the School of Myth to offer thanks for a year of utmost inspiration and creative fuel.

http://www.theschoolofmyth.blogspot.com/

The Boy in the Dress school residency

Interesting developments are happening in my work as I take my ideas ever more into the field of education. At the end of June, only a few days after the final hand-in for my Puppetry degree, I accompanied some Drama and Theatre in Education students to a primary school in Brighton to add a puppetry element to their devised performance based on David Walliam's absolutely adorable new children's book, The Boy in the Dress.
At the same time as constructing a hyuuuuuuuuge toy theatre-style puppet mounted on a bamboo rod, I ran some arts sessions with the kids to explore what they would wear in order to be as different from normal as possible (Walliam's book dealing with a boy who decides he wants to wear a dress). The quite wonderful drawings produced by the children then became part of the puppet's dress fabric.
The puppet was showcased in the children's performance, and a lovely performance it was too.

Picture Storytelling Gifts

There's been a little flurry of anniversaries of late, requiring gift-making tasks...

Firstly, a birthday crankie for my brother, featuring in the foreground his black Volkswagen beetle. I ended up making the scrolling picture and wrapping it up without photographing it, but the moving picture tells the story of my brother escaping his high-pressure job, jumping in the VW and hopping over the channel to France to have a picnic with his lady.
















For a special Valentines day project I made this pop-out card, out of train tickets used to travel to the individual in question. Pop-out card includes a mini car, with me in it, travelling via a long piece of string to the special individual in question who waits in a little treehouse. Does that all make sense?














For my flatmate Sara's 30th I rustled up "The Theatre of Halves" - a character-creating and character-halving game involving an Indian holy man, an Austrian folk dancer and a medieval street performer...

The Liminal Space Pop-up Shop

I have spent the larger part of this year engrossed in a very special project. From March to April my partner in crime Sara and I took over a disused shop in Chalk Farm, North London, and turned it into a storytelling craft centre. 'Liminal Space' was inspired by the magical power of fairytales and folk tales, in combination with archaic, mysterious visual storytelling craft techniques.



Each week we had a different folk tale theme, and our workshops drew imagery and ideas from these stories. Stories were cut up and put into story bags, moments were fished out and visual worlds created using pop-up and paper automata, toy theatre, crankie, mask and puppet-making techniques.









Down in the basement, a medieval king and queen guarded the Storytelling Den, complete with its eternally renewing apple tree. There lights twinkled, witching songs were sung and tales told.





But now 'tis nothing but a disused dry cleaners again.

Sylvanus meets the Princes in the Tower

What happens when medieval folk and Sylvanus the puppet collide?

In His Shoes...

A pair of shoes can tell a thousand stories. I recently visited 'Walking In My Shoes', an exhibition of 50 pairs of historic shoes, and came out realising that if an object has the combination of a practical use and aesthetic appeal, it can hold infinite meaning.

http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200162/the_cuming_museum/1607/temporary_exhibitions/2

With that in mind I decided at long last to make some shoes for my puppet Sylvanus, whose bare foam feet have been a disgrace for a couple of years now.

Crankie Workshop with Transition Town Belsize

Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of showing around ten members of Transition Town Belsize the simple, limitless potential of the "crankie" miniature theatre. In the warming, colourful ambience of Oliver's Village Cafe in Belsize Park the participants made their own crankie theatres using cereal boxes, wooden dowel, and various handles, nuts and bolts made of cardboard, reinforced wool and wooden coffee stirrers (yes, coffee stirrers.....spot their many uses in previous blog posts here).




By the end of the evening we had a full range of finished crankie theatres, and even a couple of finished moving picture scrolls within them, including one inside a Ricola throat sweet box, using straws as rods.



Next time I relish dabbling in collaborative crankie-making...how to tell ever-evolving stories passed from one person to the next like picture Chinese Whispers.

The Wedding Owl

Needing a wedding gift for my beloved's sister recently gave me the wonderful opportunity to make a miniature toy theatre embedded within an owl. Something I've wanted to do for a long time.









The miniature theatre casement contains the sequined initials of the newly-weds glued onto the ends of two painted coffee stirrers, enabling them to dance about in wild, heady bliss.

Pictures that Pop Up

Last monday evening I ventured across cold, wet London on my bicycle to find the most steamy windowed, patterned tabled, cosiest little cafe of them all - Olivers Cafe in Belsize Park - where I discovered three women seated at a table covered with the most bewilderingly beautiful collection of hand-crafted books. I had come to a Pop Up Book workshop organised by Transition Town Belsize, but the problem was I didn't have much inclination to make anything myself when surrounded by such inspiring artworks to leaf through. One sassy community artist lady had brought in a collection of 'shared' reclaimed books that she had made with her friends. She would find a book, decorate the cover, give it a theme and title, embellish the first couple of pages and then send it by post to another friend. Like visual chinese whispers the book would be posted around the world until finally it returned to her, filled with unexpected delights.
We spent the evening gazing at hand-made and professionally published pop up art books, attempting to follow complex instructions in How To guides, and generally getting hysterically over-excited about the cross-overs between pop-up books, toy theatre and paper arts. All hail, pictures that pop up...