folkfuturism

But, only a little bit of puppet happening right now.

Five years ago, Tuck was starting the tardigrade.

I don’t think that five years ago we knew what we would be doing next, and now we have more firm plans for two Big Builds, one of which will be used here in Philadelphia, and left here in Philadelphia. (That’s the current plan.)

The second Big Build will be very modular, and probably able to pack flat — like Ikea furniture — so when we feel we can give it some bones and mechanics, we will be in a different place. That’s the thing with the text on it.

After knitting nonstop for at least ten years, I stopped doing so– for ten years — having satisfied my urge to make baby sweaters and toys. This coincided with both children learning to say “It itchy.” I was surprised by how little I missed it.

Now I’m knitting and crocheting again, finally realizing this is my medium for more things than I thought.

In the last few years I made a sweater for Béla and a brioche stitch hat for Tuck. But sometimes between Chiari and ADHD stuff I don’t have the clarity or interest for patterns. That’s when the project with the text comes out.

I have maybe five other projects on needles, but they are household items or family garments. That knitting and puppets would fuse might have been more obvious if I’d thought about it, but there were a lot of distractions that kept me from thinking about it. Now it seems a given.

There are also, currently, many distractions. Two high school diplomas and a PhD.

The yarn used to write both texts is glow-in-the-dark yarn. This’ll be a very slow journey but I could use time to slow down for a bit!

Productive #worldpuppetryday to all my puppety friends.

Here’s Claudia, at her Sweet Sixteen party this past Saturday. It was a flawless success, because my kids both have lovely friends and are beautiful people.

It was a karaoke party with hints of an “American Psycho” theme (just the cake and her thank-you cards, really). We had tacos and pizzas and mocktails named after Claudia’s interests. It was pretty rad.

The party was an important night for me too — I crossed something off by bucket list (not just keeping a baby alive until it was sixteen).

I. Sang. Karaoke.

“Chaise Longue” by Wet Leg, in fact.

But, let us get back to the Making part of this post, and let us begin where the inspiration began…

I’m still acclimating to giving up thirty-five years of all-black clothing. I’ve made good purchases and bad purchases, but I don’t want to make a LOT of purchases, because I gained a lot of weight over lockdown, and when everyone else was getting out and exercising again, I was having gait issues due to my Chiari malformation. And my optimistic sense is that I will have to size down a bit soon.

I knew I was far from the only person who, because of disability, age, or comfort, had considered turning down social experiences where “costumes” and “dressing up” were required.

My daughter only got one sweet sixteen party. I couldn’t wait around till I felt “attractive” to get out there.

I started to think about the most minimal, smallest, closest to one size fits all garment I could make, that could still carry the saturation of drama, humor, folk history, as well as any full costume could.

But I knew the answer already, thanks to Broad City (which we have binged at least ten times in the past five years).

The Performance Bib.

I’m happier than I look here.

I love this tinsel edging.

(This last picture is some public art in Liverpool, but it has a lot of the same elements of my performance bib.)

Make no mistake, I realize I’m reinventing the wheel here. Fancy ruffs and collars are no new thing.  But they give you a LOT of bang for your buck and they adorn a very vulnerable part of you (your throat). This is, structurally, a very simple collar. But I’m concentrating on items like this to make public dancing, singing, and processions easier for people who would otherwise say they “just couldn’t” (but really wish they could.)

Although my rule is often to write about only what I’ve done, and not about what I’m going to do, I’m going to be breaking that rule as we prepare to… change virtually everything about our lives. There will be more posting, and it will be about smaller projects (mostly. There are two Big Builds in the works.) AND, look soon — perhaps in the next month? For Tucker and me doing our first audio-only podcast. This idea has been a long time coming and we are finally ready.

Ready Steady Go!

I feel like the one or two brief posts I’ve made here over the last couple years were inevitably leading to this one.

Having made a TV/rec room for the kids and their friends, we also finished up the Christmas/Yule making that we had on the needles. It’s a Rock Fact!

Some time in 2023, I began (involuntarily!) a very speeded-up emotional healing process. I guess sometimes this just happens. It reset a lot of intentions in my mind… many of which were solitary, or at least did not depend strongly upon community.

After years of Inclusion Inclusion Inclusion, I thought Oh no.

Spearheading, advising, organizing… I just couldn’t. Not now… And not here.

I haven’t been going out of my way to be reclusive, but I’m finding that I feel healthier right now just not getting too committed to any groups, festivals, workshops. I don’t have the space to take on something new. In the next three years, both kids will graduate high school, Tuck will be finishing his thesis, and we will be putting the house up for sale. ALL of us have lived here longer than we’ve lived anywhere else in our lives.

Sometimes now I just concentrate on much smaller things exclusively.

St. Brigid is “my” special saint because of Imbolc and my birthday.

We made a few different types of St. Brigid’s crosses with wax craft sticks.

And then, I knit a St. Brigid’s cross. Took much longer than I thought, and this yarn fuzzed up quite a bit, but I’m still pleased.

So what’s going on with our work as a collective, and particularly one that was focused on community, inclusion, and teaching others?

I’ve been giving thought to processional arts and every little nuance of folk culture (banners! Tassels!) And while I’m still excited to costume and parade in my community and others, costuming right now is more about Comic-con with family and friends.

I’ve made some very first steps in creating electronic circuits.

I’ve identified a musical instrument I’d like to play.

I will improve my French knot skills.

We will not be leaving Philly under a cloak of darkness. Don’t worry, you won’t miss it.

I feel so heard! I am so grateful. Having people with whom I can talk about these passions of mine is so exciting! And I have so much to listen to and read and learn from.

I feel. So. Heard. The least I can do is listen even harder.

Lucy J. Wright’s work has made me feel less isolated and more inspired to continue with my own work and the projects Tuck and I share.

SOME PLANNING, SOME UNPLANNING, SOME RE-PLANNING

meeting each other at new rocks in the road.

So, so long ago — 2010 maybe? 2011? — I volunteered in a community project at the Fleisher Art Memorial where the Artist in Residence was a woman named George Ferrandi. Her project was a self-described “night parade” called “Wherever There Is Water”. I dyed outfits for my family using kakishibu (fermented persimmon), made a tiny Claudia a tiny tutu out of torn up tulle curtains from IKEA, and battery powered strings of LED fairy lights (now, an absolutely elemental component of any night parade.) I also spun the yarn and knit an enormous Faroese shawl for a parade float figure of an old woman. In a photo e-mailed to me by another parade participant, I was in view with the giant old woman and her curved, shawled back. Next to me was another figure; Tucker’s brother, months or a year before Tuck and I had even met.

Night parades. They were pure magic and they were always just sitting there, waiting. Low-budget, No-budget, No  Artist-in-Residence.

Now it’s the middle of 2023, and the Covid pandemic still affects funding, personal budgets for an audience to take in the arts, storage — nothing can be taken for granted, because nothing is the same. A puppeteer and writer friend of mine is giving our family the treat of watching over a number of his props and puppets while he prepares to travel.

A lot of this year has been keeping each other safe as we looked for new bases of operation. We did not physically see Zach for two years, as he and I were both considered high risk for the virus.

On last year’s World Puppetry Day, Zach had written a post about what we’d done together with the Civil Rights, Civil Rites  Project, and how we were planning, the three of us, to form an entirely Neuro diverse company. We were in stasis, but we had a plan, and methods to get it in motion.

Months later, Zach texted to tell me he had moved to Maine. It was emotional and it was hard. the Philadelphia-based autism organization had not only never come to any of the public events where Zach was absolutely killing it — this project had never, despite my repeated invitations, “Liked” us on Facebook.

After two years of winning this organization’s seed grant, then a year of participating in their Advisory Board, I felt the only advice I had to give was to the organization itself: watch it with the erasure and silencing of neurodivergent Advisory Board members.

So. Tuck, Amber and Zach. Zack with a million ideas plotted out from beginning to end, Amber with a hard, fast goal of learning more specifics about armature and cord-free circuitry, and Tuck trying to squeeze in his Ph. D around us. This was something we could work with.

Then Zack called to tell me he’d moved to Maine, and to ask for directions to my friend’s peacock farm.

If there’s one thing I have learned about Zach’s family, it is that they will move across the country if they think there were more opportunities there for Zach. In this they absolutely have my vote. But Maine? What was in Maine?

One of my best friends since high school — not the one whose puppets were all over my bedroom, but the one who was a farmer in Maine — is in Maine. And raised peacocks. Anyone who has seen this blog knows Zach’s feelings about peacocks. And albino peacocks. Which my friend also had.

It took Zachary no time to find them.

After so many projects with Zach, and making blueprints for the ship that could sustain us while we took the time we needed with those projects… Right now we coast with good wishes and friendship formed.

I wanted to look beyond the small, modest parade to the truly one-off and personal. Okay, I wanted a reason to hang with my kids. cosplay. Tuck and I had had some couples costumes in mind for years. This felt much more private, intimate, and personal.

Since we knew we would be having a slow few years, I set out to learn more and read more. I wanted to practice making small circuitry. I wanted to think about my “bucket list” of events to attend, and to make sure there were original, impossible-to-imitate. There are a lot of puppet parades in the world these days, and things had started to feel samey-samey.

As I thought about all these things, I was hit with a few surprises via the social media outback. I found a Manifesta that I continue to wish I had written myself. Dr. Lucy Wright gave me permission to link to her work in this post. I don’t think I will ever stop reading this piece. It is a map to my future.

http://www.folkisfeminist.com

Jennifer White-Johnson is a fascinating project- based educator, advocate, and graphic designer. I cried when I missed her engagement at Moore College of Art in Philly — missed, as many things are for me, because a haze of pain both before and during was my “priority”. (And if I had not had the pain, I’d have made sure the time was used to be with the kids, who are still getting used to seeing me with a mobility aid.)

This manifesto says it all. I’m armed with this and with Dr. Lucy’s manifesto, and ready for any side quests and personal projects we come up with, and this is what feels best now. Béla got a book about using EVA foam (and some foam!) For Christmas, so we have plenty to learn — but no deadlines, no promotion, no 500-word abstracts to write for funding or travel. For now I am a maker and storyteller at home, planning a Wicker Man watching party for my teens and their friends.

I can happily say, a number of plans have run aground. Instead of starting any new ones, I want to mend my nets from my safe and loving home, from inside a fort of unfinished projects.

I look forward to the next hour, and to this weekend, and even the summer.

the kids were put much more in charge of putting their costumes together this year. for claude that meant a lot of purchasing garments and accessories that will likely make their way into her school wardrobe.

béla reached new heights in box cutter and hot glue Making, though — with his mask to honor a young youtube gamer who passed earlier this year.

tuck and i had illuminated tree headpieces that i wish we’d gotten longer to wear! tuck didn’t know weeping willows turned colors in fall and was inspired by that. and i love the moss on his skullcap.

How apropos that the idea of sticking with “Jell-o” deadlines can be so helpful to neurodivergent and disabled creatives. It took us SIX tries to get together to record this — all due to pain on my part. We were thrilled to hear that this was the most listened-to podcast at art-reach‘s cultural accessibility conference.

Continue reading “art-reach cultural accessibility conference 2022 with art-reach” →

The last few Halloweens have been unusual ones. 2020 was the year when no one was outside at all, except a few friends who came and stood six feet away from our kids. No one went trick-or-treating, but played Dungeons and Dragons on Zoom with friends. But they made costumes anyway. Claudia (as Achilles), ended up on the cover of “Exellence Through Classics” magazine:

And Béla was a somewhat graceless but good-sport Trojan Horse — although he gave his costume to the cat as soon as he could.

2021 brought entirely new changes, in that while there were certainly more kids out trick-or-treating, my kids had made it to such an age, as did their friends, that their idea of what they were going to do with their evening did not really coalesce until it was actually happening. This resulted in me hounding them for weeks about what exactly it was that they were dressing up as (Claudia kept telling me “I have a vision” but never told me what the vision was, only that she would need money for it) and Béla, almost always the easier child, went with Shiang-Chi. Which was an easy forty bucks at the Disney store.

Did they trick-or-treat? It’s hard to say. They had candy when they came back. Tucker took a few pictures after the kids’ friends had gathered at our door (“Our house is the place where people meet up,” Claude had said to me, with a sort of mystified pride). And they looked like a little Breakfast Club of young teens, none of them in costumes of any easily recognizable disguise, and lounging in the paths of the servers for the outdoor tables of the bistro on our corner.

They must have gone to some houses for candy, but we then saw them in the ballfield, under the halogen lights, sitting in the bleachers — THE spot for “big kids” in this neighborhood.

Since they didn’t allow me to have that much fun with their costumes, and we didn’t want to go out dressed up ourselves, I had a concept– which Tucker did the bigger portion of carrying out. That is heroic of him, as he is in the middle of his PhD. I saw that I was heading towards the last of the making of Halloween costumes and being needed by my now-teenaged children for Halloween in general, so damnit, I needed scarecrows. Of Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig.

Obviously, we are big fans of Noel already. This was my birthday in 2021.

Noel is frequently the face of tranquility and grace in our house when we most need it. The way he goes over to the bakers who are in near tears on GBBS? He just has that sense that you need a gentle boost from him? It’s like that when you have a life-sized cardboard version of him in your house as well.

But I thought we should take it further.

Something went a little wonky with Sandi’s neck as we got them outside, and I wish i had gotten a better picture of Noel’s holographic purple five-inch platform boots (which used to be Claudia’s). But honestly, these were the hit of the neighborhood and people were stopping to photograph them often. Using the honor system by putting our candy in a soup pot, because we wanted a no-contact Halloween for ourselves (Béla would contract Omicron shortly after Christmas, but the rest of us stayed negative), was not entirely successful in that it was gone in ten minutes.

We also had “Squid Game” pumpkins, which not everybody got, but the people who did were appreciative.

Noel and Sandi had been supported by the base of a portable laptop desk, and when they were brought in their bodies were broken (but not ransacked). Their heads remain in our front window that does not have fig lanterns in it.

That brings us up to date on Things We’ve Made through 2021. Obviously, we would have liked to be together with Zach and others, and we do have some rough sketches of what we are going to do next out in the world, but are happier to report on a thing once we’ve done it than talk about it before. If anyone would like to borrow a large battery-operated LED fig lantern, or Noel Fielding or Sandi Toksvig’s head, or possibly even Achilles’ shield as described in detail in The Iliad, all those things are still here and we are happy to put them to community use. The Trojan Horse though — was totally destroyed by cats.

We were so delighted when our Kensington friends announced they were going to gear up for their wonderful WEIRDO street festival — where they have always welcomed us with open arms. We had to be honest though — we were not 100% ready to be counted on too heavily as an “event”, like a workshop. We’ve been very conservative during the pandemic.

We decided not to go to the festival; but we made Fig Lanterns “for” it anyway.. They turned out great — I particularly love the bubble wrap in the “seedy” centers. They are also made in memory of our 92-year old neighbor Pasquale, for whom we could never pick his overhanging figs fast enough. They were delicious.

The figs will be in our front windows until Spooky Stuff takes over. Or, maybe they will stay there indefinitely. (UPDATE: as of February, they’re still there.)