Instalation Art Piece

I wanted to share some photo's from the first even installation art project I've ever worked on. My work in any kind of art medium has been almost entirely in puppet building, so I was very excited to try my hand at something a little different. I'm not sure exactly what to call this piece, but it was built to help promote literacy at a local school. I built three characters from popular kids books and posed them around a tree that already existed in the school lobby. Scaredy Squirrel, Chester the Cat and Flat Stanley were the three characters that were selected. The scene is basically the three characters having just finished decorating the tree to welcome the kids back to school.
Here is what the tree in the lobby looked like before I got my hands on it. An interesting looking tree and a good base upon which to build. It's mounted on a cork board in the main entrance to the school.

The first thing I did with the tree was add leaves. I figured that might help make it look more tree-like for starters and I wanted to create a summer/early fall scene...not so much the dead of winter look. The background was originally made of felt cut-outs, an elementary school classic - I wanted to try and freshen it up. Here is a shot with added leaves and the start of a background. I used foamcore stapled to the cork board and then filled the joints with regular dry-wall filler. You can also see the beginnings of background painting.



The characters I built to sit in/around the tree were not built like any puppets I'd made before. I was inspired largely by character sculptures I've seen in theme parks and in the Disney store. For example the Big Bad Wolf and Three Little Pigs in this picture. My assumption is that the sculptures found in Disney stores are mass-produced and cast from molds in fiberglass. The characters I built were built in a slightly different way.

I started with blocks of Styrofoam and sculpted the various body parts to the characters. Next, I covered each Styrofoam figure with Creative Paperclay. It's a really cool product to work with because it can we worked quite thin over the Stryofoam with water and dries very light. It can be layered quite effectively and you can then sand and paint it quite easily. Here are shots of the Squirrel, Cat and Stanley's head during this process.









Once the figures were sculpted and dry, I proceeded to add other details. A furry tail on the squirrel, fur onto Chester and a very flat set of clothes on a very flat body on Stanley. I then added props and air brush details to finish them off in the workshop before loading them into the school.





















Once all the parts were loaded into the school, I was very happy with how it turned out. I added some additional props (fence, ladder, flowers, airbrushing on the tree) during the load in and I feel that the details really brought the whole thing together. From all accounts the kids were very excited to see such a unique art piece in the school on the first day, and I understand that the staff at the school was also very happy. Here are some pictures of the finished piece.

Catch me on The Muppet Cast!

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to spend two days working at the 2009 Puppets Up! festival. I worked alongside some great puppeteers on the 'balcony". (More Below)
I didn't have the chance to see quite as many of the shows at the festival as I would have liked, but there are a few things I got to see that were just fantastic.

My favorite performance at the festival was presented by a Quebecois troupe called "Les Sages Fous". They did a night time street performance called "Bizzarium Aquarium". It was an incredibly inventive show that revolved around a large boat. The two puppeteers proceeded to "dive" into the pavement and discover a whole world of underwater creatures. There were aspects of the performance that incorporated mime and clown and a variety of styles of puppetry. You can see photos of the show on their official website here. If you ever have the chance to see "Le Sages Fous" I would highly recommend it.

Most of my time at the festival was spent on the balcony. This balcony was essentially a scaffolding mounted on a street corner and dressed to look like a balcony. The puppeteers were hidden within the contraption, equipped with mics and puppets we would more-or-less heckle the passers-by. It was great fun to interact with and poke fun at festival attendees of all ages!

Here are some pictures that show what I'm talking about! Puppeteers Jessica Fitzpatrick and Allen Martin perform a camel and a goldfish puppet.


The whole balcony crew was 5 puppeteers strong so there were lots of fun combinations of characters to see on the balcony.


Amidst all the puppet action that was going on in Almonte last weekend I also had a moment to chat with Steve Swanson. Steve hosts an awesome podcast called The Muppet Cast. He does a really wonderful job covering all things Muppets and Puppet for that matter. He has covered the festival previous years and I was more then happy to bring him a report right from the heart of the action for the 2009 edition. You can find the interview in Episode #122 of the Muppetcast, downloadable here or on iTunes.

Enjoy!

Bobbie the Boat Shoot

Wow, it has been almost a year since we shot this stuff, but I've come across some behind-the-scenes pictures from a shoot I did for the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary . It was a pilot project that aims at teaching children about the importance of boating and water safety. Bobbie the Safety Boat, the star of the project, is actually a large robotic character that interacts with people at various events and locations (boat shows, water fronts etc.) and also does presentations to kids about promoting water safety at school, scouts, etc. I got to perform Bobbie at a number of events and in these training videos a few years back and it was a lot of fun. (I'm featured more in video's 3 and 4.) He even has a water sprayer that can squirt water at people; best believe I had a good time with that.




What we were shooting was a series of PSA's that involve Bobbie, and some other puppet characters that I designed. The Bobbie puppet for the video's was build by Matt Fichner, and I built an additional 6 characters to round out the cast.




The 2-day shoot we did late last summer involved some PSAs I wrote for 5 of the characters to teach water safety. We shot them at a gorgeous lake-side location in Quebec. It was my first experience puppeteering in the water; it was a great learning experience. Jessica Fitzpatrick and I puppeteered assisted by my brother Nick. The finished PSAs have yet to see daylight, but I'll be sure and post them when they do. The best I can do for now is this clip that was put together to thank the folks who lent us their boat and dock.



Here are some shots from shooting in the water!




On a unrelated puppet note, Puppets Up! the international puppet festival is next weekend (Aug. 8th and 9th) in Almonte, ON. I'll be there with my puppets both days and I highly recommend you check it out if you are in the area. Information is here.