About Me and My Puppets

I dabble in puppets.

It's part of my job as a children's librarian, but it's the fun, "I-really-get-paid-for-this?"  part of the job.
It all began back in the early 1990's when a co-worker scheduled a puppet show and then left to take a job at another library.  It was on the schedule, so I had to step in and perform Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock with puppets made by the co-worker, but no script.

Coming up with a script was pretty easy because I had the excellent book by Eric Kimmel as a template. My personal touch was the sound effects, voices and humor.  It was such fun that I added part-time, amateur, novice puppeteer to my resume.

My next puppet show was Rumpelstiltskin. Mama and I made the puppet heads out of newspaper papier mache applied to a base made out of cotton ball stuffed nylon knee highs.  Mama sewed the costumes.

For some of the shows I've done I've used the Folkmanis (or other brand) puppets we've had on hand at  the library. But most shows have featured my or my Mama's handmade puppets.

Mama -
my co-puppet-maker
and inspiration
Jane R Conway

Puppet making has been an activity that's shown me how much creativity I had hidden inside me for many years. That puppet show I was thrown into opened up a fun new world for me.