Category: Carlsbad

Shadow Poems this Saturday, 12/21

12/16/2013

Above is a sneak preview to a new line of shadow projections that I will be presenting this Saturday, 12/21/13 at the Winter Wonderland space located inside the Westfield Plaza Camino Real in Carlsbad (2525 El Camino Real; the space is between Cricket Wireless and Zales). The image you see is a shadow of a snow-covered pine tree layered over an inkjet transparency of a forest. A real pine tree sits in the right foreground. The smell of pine adds to the wonderland experience.

I'm pleased to share that I have been creating new work and hope you will stop by this Saturday to witness it in movement. My 2pm presentation and Q&A follows Jukebox Radio, a performance group that works with music, puppets, and play. They will be hosting a workshop at 12:30pm that day as well.

Stay tuned for an additional update on my involvement with Winter Wonderland. I'll also be participating in a pop-up shop on Sunday, 12/22/13 and will be selling some recently new work and handmade crafts.

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Review: Hobey Ford’s Animalia & “World on a String” puppetry exhibition at the Canon Art Gallery at the Carlsbad Library

11/15/2011

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(A belated post written on 10/17/11)

This past weekend I traveled down South to do some research and obtain more materials for my current thesis work on my mobile shadow puppet theater. I reconnected with my former boss, Lynne from the San Diego Guild of Puppetry, who gave me some helpful insight on my materials search and provided a great number of resources. It was also the same weekend of the city of Carlsbad’s program Family Open Studios, in conjunction with the “World on a String” puppetry exhibition at the Canon Art Gallery located at the Carlsbad Library. Puppeteer Hobey Ford also performed one of his signature shows, Animalia, which proved to be a magical show for the families that attended.

Just before the Family Open Studios event began, I helped Lynne deliver a giant “blue man” puppet and set it up for Max Daily, a San Diego puppeteer. He strapped himself to the feet and spine of the puppet, holding the long tent rods of the puppet’s arms in his hands and walked around the library courtyard space. Parents and adults looked in awe while children gawked and stared; some slowly stepped forward and shook hands with the giant blue man. Other children kept their distance.

“World on a String” is part of a much larger collection of Alan Cook, who has more than 2,000 puppets in his collection. He is based in Los Angeles, making this location one of the prime puppet resources available on the West Coast. One could see a variety of puppet types in this exhibit - string, hand-glove, and shadow puppets - from around the world and of different time periods. A mid-century Bil Baird marionette rocking horse was on display, as well as an early Punch and Judy set of hand puppets. The large, exaggerated creepy facial features of Punch and Judy demonstrates the use of stock characterization that was adopted by hand puppeteers in 19th century Britain.

My favorite was seeing the small handful, but ornately beautiful shadow puppets from Southeast Asia mounted against the wall. Most of these puppets were created out of animal hide, which I do not plan to use in my production of “Isla Vista Mythology” but can see how the translucent quality of the animal hide allows for color to show well against a shadow screen. Up until this point, I had not seen a Malaysian shadow puppet (center photo below). Its style was distinct, with simple, thick black outlines of a figure. I may want to adopt a similar visual vocabulary when I create some of my own shadows.

Later I watched Hobey Ford’s production of Animalia. It was a showcase of the different animals and creatures of the Earth, with its story revolving around a caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly. The audience was captivated by the beginning hook that Hobey performed using his patented pair of “peepers.” These are a pair of eyes that Hobey hitched onto his hand, and with various degrees of graceful body movement and hand gestures, he steered our attention in transforming the different animals he depicted. Later on we watched the creative foam hand and rod puppets that Hobey created for this production, as his ability to move them to look as if they were real were indeed realistic.

This excursion proved to be a good learning experience, which takes me back to my current status of working-in-progress with my shadow puppet theater. How I plan to take the information I learned with me will unfold into a refined theater piece. This won't take an overnight turnaround, but I will have to undergo a three-fold process of honing and mastering the craft of making shadows, manipulating them so that these images come to life, and creating a theater environment.

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Shadow Poems this Saturday, 12/21

Review: Hobey Ford’s Animalia & “World on a String” puppetry exhibition at the Canon Art Gallery at the Carlsbad Library

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