The Saga of Log: A tale told through weird prop-building

    Every so often I get a call or e-mail from my friend Steve Monosson. Steve among his many qualifications is an independent filmmaker with a wonderfully skewed view of the world. Whenever he contacts me out of the blue I just know he's going to ask me to make something strange and fun. Past projects include a four foot tall totem pole featuring a poodle and pistachios  and a lot of bark-themed accessories. I could explain it all, but It wouldn't make any more sense and would probably detract from the wonderful absurdity of it all. Instead, witness the epic tale of the galaxy's near brush with and improbable rescue from Almost Certain Intrusion!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I Give You Log vs The Space Intruders!

I made the puppet version of Log, the space station,(this was accomplished by hot gluing a lot of random stuff together and spray painting it silver) Outer Space, (in all it's tinfoil glory), and the flying saucer (which is, as you rightly guessed, a colander and pie pan glued together). I am absurdly proud of this film credit. It may be one of the favorite things I've ever done!

Log has appeared in several different incarnations over the years. Steve himself offers some insight into his chosen muse and creative process:

 "Someone asked me at a screening why I used a log and I replied that he "took directions easily", And you can quote me on that for all your props- there's no back talk, they're there when you need them, and no complaints about working overtime."

Log's Journey now continues. I hope I don't inadvertently write any spoilers. Sorry in advance, Steve!
Log, after his intergalactic triumph returns home to visit his estranged father in the "Old Oaks Home" (No, I did not write that one, though I very well might have!). I was asked to costume the two principle actors. I first went over to take their measurements. Steve snapped this shot of me doing so. Note the  fact that the actor has been pixelated to avoid revealing who plays one of the key roles. I won't spoil the surprise, but would just like to say that he was gracious and a total pro to work with.

 Log was to be attired in a military-style flight jacket. I made this out of an old pair of olive green slacks.

All these costumes were 100% Hand-sewn for the aesthetic reason that I don't own a sewing machine.

Note that the "Air Force" insignia is actually an acorn and two maple wings. I love throwing this sort of detail into my work. It's part of why I'm good at what I do, and why I'm particularly worrying to be around for nay length of time

Log's Regimental emblem would obviously be an Ivory-billed woodpecker

Log's Father (my suggestion that he be addressed as the Logfather was vetoed for some reason...) would be dressed in a tattered institutional bathrobe. I tried to convert an infant onesie for this purpose, but I couldn't conceal the adorable duckies and teddy bears well enough. I used a beach towel instead.

The reunion is apparently a very touching and emotional one. Log's father is brought to tears. I was asked to make a miniature syrup bucket and tap for that scene. The bucket is about 2 1/2 inches tall. It took me four or five attempts to get it right. I used aluminum flashing, galvanized wire and a small piece of dowel. The aged patina was done by several layers of paint and sandpaper.

The tap itself is mounted on an eye-hook so that it can be attached for the scene (Log's father is a method actor).

Steve sent me this image to let me know my work had arrived safe and sound

...And this one to let me know I had some more work to do!

Self Portrait Volume I.5: The contents of my luggage.

       We live in an increasingly narcissistic and shallow age. Never before in the history of our species has communication been so easy. With our amazing technical advancements we are capable of broadcasting every detail of our lives, and every thought that crosses our minds to the entire world and giving it the weight of real importance. Worse still, the system has become self perpetuating. Not only are we capable of telling the world what we had for breakfast with the click of a button, but other people can weigh in with their own superficial opinions on the trivialities of our lives, thus adding fuel to the fire of our egotism.
Personally I find this crude intolerable and disgusting.

I will be damned if I let everyone else hog all of the attention!

    As a person who travels for a living, I ordinarily spend very little time thinking about packing. I just throw whatever book I'm reading, a sketchpad , my laptop, some toiletries and the appropriate amount of black clothing in a bag, grab the fiddle case on the way out the door, and I'm ready to go. Preparing for Arizona was different. I had to make sure I was ready for several different climate conditions and had casual clothing as well as "show blacks". I also had to make certain that I had enough things to keep me amused for three weeks, including endless hours in the passenger seat of a car. Perhaps because i'm working on my self portrait, and am slightly more conscious of the question of identity that I realized the assembled items actually provide insight into my personality.  Here, in short are the things I didn't want to be without for three weeks. I shall spare you the boring stuff like clothes and such. note to the makers of any of the items pictured: I will happily endorse the living daylights out of  your products. You just have to pay me lots of money first!

What I packed:
*My bike
*My fiddle
*Books: The Mythic Image-Joseph Campbell, Birds Of the Western U.S., The Tempest- William Shakespeare, Walden- Henry David Thoreau, A book of short stories by Robert Heinlein (borrowed from my roommate), 300 Fiddle tunes.
*Two packages of my favorite pens
*Large contact juggling ball
*Billiard ball (also for contact juggling. This is my pre-show warm up)
*Block of soapstone
*Several blocks of wood (Maple and Basswood)
*Selection of wood carving tools and sharpening stones in tool roll
*Tool roll with rasps and stone carving tools
*Large sketch pad
*Pad of bristol board
*Pad of watercolor paper
*Roll containing various drawing tools and brushes
*Box set of watercolors
*MP3 player
*Mouse puppet
*Laptop (Okay, its like this: My friend who sold me this computer never mentioned it was yellow until I had already agreed to buy it. It used to belong to his girlfriend apparently. So you see, I had little choice but to paint it with the Taxi cab pattern).  
*(not pictured for obvious reasons) Digital camera

Thinking Small

      On the backpacker circuit, puppeteers have a problem that no other performer seems to encounter, to whit: no obvious means of showing  off.
      In any random group of international travelers, there tends to be a large number of creative open minded people, exactly the sort of people who it is fun to compare notes and possibly collaborate with. The kind of people most likely to be favorably impressed by my odd career choice. The fact that many of them are attractive young women is entirely coincidental. The trouble starts when it comes time to actually show what you can do. The chances of anyone having a good usable puppet with them are extraordinarily slim. Musicians never have this problem. Someone always has a guitar. Jugglers usually come fully equipped. Actors, dancers and vocalists never even have to think about it.
      The practical result is that either you have to explain as best you can and  leave everything up to the imagination, or spend a great deal of your time abroad frantically sourcing materials and hurriedly attempting to build a shadow show. Time, I hasten to point out that could better and more constructively used for drinking rum in a hammock.

    The problem is further compounded by the fact that my natural tendency as a puppeteer is towards grandiose theatrical  ideas best executed on a full sized stage. I want to build the next "Lion King" or "War Horse". This is terribly difficult to do without financial backing. Instances of Broadway producers stepping forward to offer me large production budgets have been rare. Casual observers have commented on how frequently this doesn't happen to me. My natural inclination for working large also has the unintended side effect of needing to find storage in my apartment for stuff like this:

Minotaur 1999-2000. Mixed media.

As an intellectual exercise, I've decided to change gears and deliberately design and build a series of smaller puppets that could neatly fit into any given carry on bag. For my first piece I thought I would build a rod puppet that could be manipulated by one hand with finger rings. Here is the system I originally designed. It worked, but I found for practical purposes, it limited the range of motion the puppet was capable of. I changed to simple rods in the final version.

The puppet was carved out of maple. Maple while beautifully grained is ordinarily a wood that I'd consider too heavy and dense for puppet building. One of the advantages to my size limitations is that weight became much less of an issue. I was therefore able to use an attractive piece of maple that I had on hand. Here are the blocks that I used.

....And here is the finished product! He is finished with coffee(one of my favorite wood finishes! more on that later) and jointed with leather. His ears, paws,eyelids and tail are also leather. the eyes are polymer clay with a high gloss finish.

       
 As a special added bonus, here is a minute of test footage that is now up on Youtube! :

This was a fun exercise. I like how it turned out. I may have to do more small scale work.

Christmas Puppets.

You know how life goes...

You move to a new apartment, get busy with your job and side projects, Thanksgiving  happens, your family does a bunch of stuff, and the next thing you know you've finally finished Christmas shopping and realize that you haven't updated your blog in two months.

Oh yeah, Sorry 'bout that!

Anyway, This year I decided, in an ill conceived effort to save money and time, to make my nephews and step-niece their gifts. I feel pretty comfortable posting the results because I'm fairly certain none of them follow this blog. The kids are the perfect age for this (Six, six, and four), in other words, old enough to get it and young enough to be easily impressed. To no one's great surprise, I made them all puppets. On Thanksgiving, I covertly found out what each of the children's favorite animals were, by the highly stealthy method of asking my sister Anne (their mom).
Nicholas's favorite is the lion

Cameron, like any six year old girl, loves horses

Michael's favorite animal in the whole world, for four year old reasons, best understood by himself, is a white mouse. I double checked this to make sure it was right. It has to be white.

I wanted them to be as simple as possible to operate, while still being fun to play with. The puppets are based off Sicilian Marionettes and have rope legs and tails ( braided clothesline. Incidentally,I discovered that clothesline is next to impossible to dye!). their bodies are made of polyfoam covered in fleece and felt with yarn and leather accents and simple carved wooden feet. the eyes are of course polymer clay.

My room mate, Joe was kind enough to shoot the photos. He also has some video footage that I will upload when I get it. I was hoping to take some additional shots, but apparently I forgot to pack my camera with me. If anyone remembers to get pictures of the children unwrapping these, I'll post them too.
Merry Christmas!