Pushing Puppet Boundaries - "Picasso" the Gorilla Lives!!

-
       First, so much thanks to the Center for Puppetry Arts, Micheal Haverty and XPT (Experimental Puppet Theater) and my amazing collaborator, Julia Hill!  
      After being accepted into the 2011 XPT showcase as the only art installation, Julia and I teamed up once again to create our most ambitious and unique creature to date. Over 3 months of planning, sketching, and experimenting with materials, we knew we wanted to create something we'd never seen before. Through trial and error, inspiration and injury (fiberglass hurts!), "Picasso" the gorilla was born.

      "Picasso" is almost entirely constructed of fiberglass rods and "kite" connectors.  His skin is a light-weight fabric that is attached "panel by panel" to each quadrant.  His legs hide jumping stilts, allowing the puppeteer to jump and run.  We fabricated custom arm stilts that lock your arms into a comfortable position transferring weight to the shoulders and back.  "Picasso" is the actual size of a silver back gorilla but the entire puppet weighs less than 15 pounds (not counting jumping stilts).  His head, weighing in at 2 pounds, is mounted to a bike helmet. Shoulders are attached to arms and his backside is belted on. At night, he lights up with the help of 10 LED's mounted around the inside of his body and under his eyebrow. 
     Artistically, we wanted to explore how we perceive shapes and colors.  How our eyes put shapes together and find new lines in the negative space.  We attempted to innovate on the contemporary idea of puppet design and construction and in the process, tried to blur the lines between art and puppet. But most of all, like real gorillas, we wanted to make him beautiful.

Besides these videos, you can watch a short slide show of the building process on my Art Portfolio page.  Enjoy.

Episode 1 - The Building Begins 

Episode 2 - Intro to XPT and "Picasso"

Episode 3 - Preview night of XPT 2011 @ CPA

Episode 4 - Play time with "Picasso" - Last night of XPT

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I've been talking with Creators about their Process, here's what they're saying.

-
Image
Hello fellow artists, readers and guests. Over the past several months I've been conducting interview and informal conversations with artists, creatives and people that seem to accomplish their short term creative goals with success. Let me tell you, the amount of feedback on the state of the modern artist is tremendous.      Putting aside the axiom of persistence getting us where we want to go, eventually, I asked fellow creators if they had any effective strategies for improving performance on longer-term creative projects? We all want to see our creative projects through to some level of completion and we want the highest quality available, affordable or capable. But not everyone gets their projects to the "finish line." What's the big secret? Why are some of us creating portfolios of work and others aren't?     From the horses mouth, simply put, just start . Yup, literally just 'Do it'. Get things going, over and over again. Start as early as pos...
Read more

Let's talk about BALANCE in a creative life.

-
Image
The life of a Creative person can be a tenuous balance. We make and create but also rest and relax. More experienced adventurers will understand the back and forth of creative energy. Sometimes we need to recharge that psychic juice. Give ourselves time to organize and reorganize our plan of action. How do you find balance? The working artist has a limited amount of time to spend acquiring new skills or knowledge not specific to their art. Anyone who’s ever created anything knows how much time, energy, money, emotion, thought, blood, sweat and even tears we invest in our work. Always hoping it will turn out better than expected and always relieved when it turns out at all. We could work just as hard at becoming more effectual, dynamic creators or communicators. What if there was a refresher course for working artists? What if there was a community of creative people that didn’t quite know how to connect? How does an introverted artist grow their network? The Creator’s W...
Read more

Hello San Diego!

-
Image
What a difference a year makes! We've had some big changes and we're excited to get back to work! We relocated HQ to beautiful San Diego, California last October and even though a pandemic has slowed the process, we are making new connections, new friends, enjoying the beach and letting the community know we're here to be of service just as much as we are in Atlanta.  San Diego has been kind and helpful and we feel blessed at the opportunity to share our talent and energy with this fine city.  And Atlanta will always feel like home.  As we recently mussed about my humble beginnings at the Center for Puppetry Arts as a puppeteer, to working my way up the film industry ladder from lowly art pa to become a successful commercial art director, to moving into directing and helping private and corporate clients tell their stories in meaningful and compelling ways. How BRP has grown in wonderful and unexpected ways since its creation in 2012?! I can't wait to see what's com...
Read more