What is meaningful about your puppet?

[Frogpuppeteer]

just wondering out of everyone here who built there first puppet or had someone build it for them was there a story behind it or a special reason if yoou could share it would be cool i will tell mine when i was 13 i had a pet frog named freddy one of the best pet frogs in the world.well one night after playing with him(would sit on my hand and i could pet him) i fed him and went to bed the next day i said goodbye and went to school as i got homei went to check on him and he was dead.i i didnt want to let him go so i turned originally into a cartoon.two years ago my first puppet of him was built and ive never had to let go of my very llove freddy anyones puppet that special to them?

 

[Jivepuppet]

If you check out my website you'll see a puppet named Plink (www.elmwoodproductions.com). He was pretty much the first puppet I ever built. I talked a lot about building puppets for years, but never acctually did. Here is where it gets kind of sad. My mother was dying. She had both emphasyma and lung cancer (don't smoke kiddies) and was in the final stages of her life. My wife, father, and myself decided someone should stay with her at all times to keep up on everything since she had become bedridden, and I quit my job to do so. My wife and I lived with my parents so someone would always be there. She was at a point that she had been perscribed morphine for the pain and was out of it most of the time. After my father got home from work one of the first days I was out of work, I went to the fabric shop, my mom slept most of the day, so here was a chance to work on puppets and take my mind off what was going on. So, during the day I sit in the next room while she slept and tried making a puppet. My mom always wanted me to do this so it was very thereputic for me.
Unfortunatly she never got to see the finished Plink. She passed away within a couple of week of my quitting my job.
But I did get Plink out of it. To this day building puppets is very calming to me and I use it as almost a time of meditation, and often think of my mother and hope she's proud of how far this puppet thing has taken me in four short years. Not only do I build and perform, but I have a crew and we make short films and show, and I teach puppetry to elementary school kids.
Thanks Mom, and Thanks Plink!
Jon

 

[Frogpuppeteer]

so anyone else have a story about there puppet

 

[Show and Tell]

Wow Jive! Thats a serious tear jerking story Beautiful though. Do you have any pictures of Plink?

 

[Puppetplanet]

I just had to pick myself up off the floor from my fit of giggles after visiting Jivepuppets website. The "friend on potty" picture is always a classic.


Short cut to the photo I'm talking about Here

Cool site by the way.

-Michele


PS: I know I muffined the thread, but you have to admit that it was for a worthy cause. *grin*

 

[Jivepuppet]

Oh Man....

Puppet_Builder - Check out my site for pics of Plink, he's pretty simple, but effective! www.elmwoodproductions.com, he is the blue puppet about 3/4 down on the main page.

Michelle - Oh man, I'm suprised anyone has found that picture!
But, I did put it there for anyone to see! That's me on the toilet! We did stage the picture, so it's kind of cheating, but funny.


I'd love to hear/read some more stories too!

 

[Puppetplanet]

Well, there IS a puppet in this house that has significant meaning but more to my daughter than myself....

My first attempt at puppet building was with felt and polyfill, which I made decent money with by selling them to friends, churches, and local craft shows. See my avatar, thats one of the first few I made. Anyway, my daughter always played with them and it didn't really concern me much because the materials were cheap, and it was stuffed with filling.... kind of like a doll.

But then I started doing research on foam based puppets, spent a fortune on god knows how many patterns that I wasn't satisfied with. I was frustrated at the quality and the amount of money I was spending to get something that was so-so (to me). It took years to develop a method that I was happy with and there are still things about my current method and look that I think need improvement.

But anyway, as unhappy about them as I was, the foam based characters were selling for over twice as much as the original stuffed ones I made. It's weird, I guess the puppets had more value to me because people were willing to pay more for them. This is what started to get me nervous about allowing my daughter to play with them, and I started to restrict her involvment in the building process as well as her interactive play with them.

Often, I would catch her in my room sneaking a peak, picking up a new one I was working on, or playing "puppet show" with them. One day, after telling her several times to please leave them alone, I had caught her in there again. Well, I was stressed and I really let into her about not touching them and she just started to cry and went to her room. I felt so bad about how I reacted, even though she hadn't listened.

I always kept the very first foam based puppet I ever made. It's this hiddious thing with hair falling out, felt "skin", fingernails barely hanging on by glue, and a hand made dress and wings that were fraying badly. It was her favorite puppet, I think because of the wings. =) And, it was the very puppet that she was playing with when I yelled at her that day. So, I gave it to her for Christmas that year and the minute she opened the box she started to cry, which had caught me off guard and I started crying too. *laughing*

Four years later and she still has it. It's so tattered and worn that she's afraid to play with it so she displays it on a top shelf in her room. She's very protective of it when other people pick it up for a closer look and hovers over them until it's put back.


Anyway, as you can see, I can get pretty long winded. Thats why I didn't want to get into story telling mode.

-Michele

 

[Jivepuppet]

That's really sweet..
I don't think stories like these can be short!

 

[Puppetplanet]

Hey, I just noticed that your located in Connecticut, How cool is that?! I'm from Connecticut too! I was born at St. Mary's hospital in Waterbury. I live in Florida now, but visit relatives once or twice a year. I've been here since I was nine, but I still miss the change of leaves in the fall, sledding on garbage lids, and HILLS!


My last trip was this past October and I checked out the The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, which was a lot smaller than I expected, but their pieces on display were impressive.

Is it Uconn that has a new building built right in the middle of the city in Waterbury? I think it's a drama/theatre based curriculum in that building if I'm not mistaken. Right a across from Dominic an Pias Pizza..... oh, I love that stuff. Smelling it just makes me drool! If you haven't already, you've GOT to try them. Now I'm hungry! *laughing*

-Michele

PS: Muffined the thread again, didn't I?

 

[Jivepuppet]

Wow, you live in Florida!

I lived there, in Brandon, from Jan. 2001 to Aug. 2002! I was born in Connecticut, in Hartford, and have lived in the state all my life other than the breif stint in sunny Florida!

BIMP is tiny, but nice. I'll be volunteering there this year! Last year they had the actual Scooter used in The Muppet Show on display! In the past I've seen Grover, Cookie, and several puppets from Bunny Picinc there including the dog marionette!

I think the new building is part of UCONN, but I'm not sure, I admit, Ii haven't really kept on on it!

Next time you're up this way drop me and email, we'll get some pizza!

Joining you on the muffing-
Jon