Silicone Eyes: A lengthy tale of woe

So, the local doll shop where I get my glass eyes has gone under. I've got mixed emotions about it since the guy who ran the place was a major jerk face poop head bucket of a mean wad...and yet, when I needed puppet eyes I could go and say, "ok this one works, & this one doesn't."

I've had to find a new supplier. Online.

Now, unfortunately I'd never really paid much attention to the actual size of the eyes I'd been buying. There was no need. I simply brought in a puppet's head & held the eyes up & said "ok this one works, & this one doesn't."

I found a supplier & took a chance on the size. They're local, too, which is a plus--except that they still needed to ship things to me.

Now, I really only use the glass eyes in swanky puppets, so when I saw silicone eyes on this website & saw just how swanky the price-tag was, I thought I'd give it a try. I mean, they must cost that much for a reason, right?

I got them & fell in love. They looked & felt so realistic. (yes, I've handled real eyes....) (OK that's a lie, I've never handled real eyes) (OK that's a lie, too. When I was in the 5th grade my class dissected cow eyes. Being the animal rights activist that I was as a 10-year-old (read that as "totally grossed out"), I refrained. However since my dad worked near the butcher, I was required to bring the brown paper sack full of enough cow eyes to entertain a group of curiously twisted 5th graders to my class. On my bicycle. In the rain. So in some sort of truth, I've handled lots of eyes. Except that it wasn't in the rain. I added that part for creative storytelling.)

I had a project that I felt would be perfect for the eye-swank. And they were. Not too bulgy, not too flat. and I could cut them down where I needed to. So awesome I just wanted to bite them. I found the perfect eyeball. I made the eyelids to fit around them perfectly & glued them in with E6000. Then began working on an elaborate tattoo. I stayed up all night to meet this before-Christmas deadline.

My husband woke up to find me busy at work from the night before. Eager to show him my progress, I held up the puppet. He raved about what I had done. "When are you going to glue in the eyes?" said he. "I did already." said I. "Uhh..." said he. "Uhhhhh....WHAT? NO! NO NO NO NO NO!" said I.

The glue didn't stick. One eye looked up at me from the floor. I ran to my hot glue gun with only hours to get this bad Larry to the post office. Hot glue did nothing. Silicone doesn't stick! That's its deal. What was I even thinking? My fried eggs always slide perfectly out of my frying pan, why would I think that E6000, the glue known to the state of California to cause cancer, could hold the eyes to the fabric sockets? Why? Because the glue friggin' causes cancer, that's why!

Desperate, I went to my unventilated workspace to dig out my contact cement. Not only did I have just a few hours, we also had family coming over for breakfast & I was working on 0 sleep two days before Christmas. I grabbed a nearby chopstick & started slopping the yellow goo on. Stupid stinky, yellow goo. I had neither time nor common sense to go cautiously. I let the socket & silicone eye get tacky & shoved them in. Keeping in mind that the lids are usually put on after, I couldn't get the eyes focused. The puppet that I had worked so hard on was quite possibly my most impressive & worst puppet all at the same time. I really hope the silicone doesn't discolor over time.

In improv we say that your best show & your worst show have one thing in common. They're both in the past. And the beauty of improvisational theater (to me) is that it's very temporal. Part of making puppets (for me) is the quasi permanence. I'm making something to last, and I hope it does. I have so many regrets about that puppet...and most of it stems from taking all of that extra time fixing my silicone eye nightmare.

Puppeteers, take heed. Buy not the silicone eyes. As pretty as they may be, they're not your friend. Oh I'm sure I could get silicone epoxy and make my life complete again. But I'm a woman scorned. Scorned by deliciously beautiful eyes. (I still kinda want to bite them.)

bacon stank

I just feel absent from the blog-writing & if you don't follow me on twitter for some reason or another (i.e. don't care what I'm eating for lunch, if I'm late for work, or what my cats are doing), then you might be wondering where I've gone....or you're not wondering & you're only ever really reading this because we're related or you feel obligated as a friend. Anyway, I've been down with the swanky little swine flu. I'm feeling better (knock on wood) but can't seem to find my energy just yet. Napping seems necessary 95% of my day. Which, for this time of year doesn't bode well for custom orders. So yeah, if you're expecting me to make something for you before Christmas, let's all just keep our finger's crossed!

So in the meantime I've been up to my eyeballs in making puppets. Maybe not literally, but I did find a good eyeball supplier who is local, so that made me happy. It's during this time of year that I get to remind myself to take it one small puppet at a time...or arm...or mouth plate.

Val the Tissue Box

Reminding myself of my first intentions

So I guess I have to remember that a lot of what I'm doing is being an artist & sharing my art.

Yeah, it's tiny & I've seen one or two of them in my nephew's mouth, but it's still a little bit of a sculpture that only I can spit out of my fingers & brain (really, who else would come up with meatloaf piranha?).

If I sell it, that's great. If I merely make people smile from seeing tiny art, that's good too. Ultimately puppets make people happy, and happiness is really pretty kick-butt-amazing.

So the question comes in with "do I lower prices so people can own my art?" Not right now. When my prices were lower, my production had to be higher to meet demand. That compromised my workmanship as well as my creativity in the creation process. (one can't just spit out UniCorns when one is making mass-produced red fish with really creepy orange eyes, now can they?)

It'd be nice for people to want to own tiny pieces of art, but now isn't the time. I guess I'd rather people spend money on things they need...like real bedazzled tampons, rather than their finger puppet counterpart. Or food...they could buy food.

I wonder what attitude I should have going into this pirate festival this Friday, though. Do I allow it to inspire some awesome pirate themed puppets? Or do I crank out lots of easy-to-make, lower quality finger puppets that I can offer at a lower price to cover the pricey-for-me booth fee? It's a tough.

For comicon, I allow everything I encounter from now until then to inspire kick-patuchus puppets, done over such a vast period of time that I'll have enough inventory. Thankfully comicon kids appreciate tiny expensive things made with my girl-hands.

Brown Bunny of DOOOOOOM!

I really like the phrase "....of dooom" I think it tells a lot about someone/something, and yet allows that someone/something to keep a certain mystery about them. mmm doom bunnies.

still figuring it out...

Alright, just because I've got my plot of land & need to watch my fruit ripen (hmm...) doesn't necessarily mean I have my act together enough to have places to put the fruit (uh..yeah), or even to let others know that I've got a sweet little farm goin on (I think my analogy has fallen apart)...

So I did the Sunnyslope Artwalk last night. The good news is that I got sweet new packaging for my finger puppets the day before, which just finished off what they'd been lacking in person for so long. Alright, then! Sunnyslope art-walkers, be prepared to fall in love with some delicious puppet pie! Booyah! In your face artwalk-y people! Yeah!

Ok maybe a little less than that...I had a few people tell me how awesome they were & how I should try to sell to children's boutiques in Scottsdale & I had others tell me that they recognized me from the Puppet Slams. I sold 2 finger puppets to some really rad teenagers who came back 3 times before they got money from their parents (Thanks, stranger Mom & Dad!).

So that's good, right? I made my money back from the booth fee plus three dollars! $3 is good for 8 hours, right?

I mean, it would be good if the people to the right & left of me hadn't been selling things every 5-10 minutes....I felt very over-looked. And I wasn't the whole night, I did get people coming by & telling me that my stuff was great, but anytime I had a lull, it was a long one & nobody else was lulling.

They sell so much better online, and I'm not sure why. Are people buying them because they like what I write? Do they just look horrible in-person? Are people afraid to pay $12-$18 on something 2" tall in person whereas they're okay with it online? Why did I forget to buy eyes while I was at Michael's the other day? Drat......And what about Naomi?

So I was sitting back and observing a lot. My friend Erin makes the most amazing Sock Zombies in the world. She just won a Best of Phoenix Award for them. We were in the same issue of the Phoenix NewTimes, I was in as an artist, she was in as a winner of "Best Zombie Related Art", & I'm all manners of proud..Anwyay, she was on one side, and some tweens were on the other side with bottlecaps-turned-magnets that they were selling for charity. I kept hearing "Whoopies" "Sock Zombies" all night...

Was anyone saying "Puppet Pie"? Well of course not...in order to see those words anywhere, they'd have to walk over, pick up a plastic box & look at the bottom (of which the lids keep popping off) before they could even find the words "puppet pie". And even then, when they flipped things over the first things out of their mouths were "No choking allowed" and then they'd say the name of the puppet. Just walking by, from far away they could see some things in containers & a pig hand puppet inside of an unfinished wood dollhouse (I keep saying I need to put electricity in before I put wallpaper in...so I'm stalling)--but nowhere could they see the fantastical words "Puppet Pie" to intrigue them to see what was in the actual booth. (On a side note, I dont think I'll use the dollhouse again until I finish it. because really...)

It's the same reason that nobody bought the painted dirt clods that Zachary & I sold from the playhouse in my parents' backyard when we were 7. Nobody knew we were there! Had they known, we'd have run out of the painted dirt clods, for sure--and probably have had the local paper come and do a story on the operation to boot! (It really was high quality work)

So long story short...ok not really short, but to conclude my long story, I'm making a banner. Well, I'm designing a banner & I'll have someone print it up & ship it to me.

I questioned whether or not I should just give up doing artwalks, but I think I can't give up just yet. I'll get a banner first, then I'll give up! That's called perserverance, and baby, I gots it!

Again, with the spelling...I hope I got at least a 97%.

It just occurred to me...

a) Occurred was a vocabulary word in my junior year of High School. I will never forget that.

b) I've done a bucket load's of really rad stuff that I feel compelled to list, but then I feel like that would be bragging, but then I feel like if a blog is for nothing else, it's to feel mildly indulgent, even if it's informative, because really most things people do are indulgent. I really hope I'm spelling Indulgent right....

c) I really like run-on sentences. although that didn't just occur to me. I've known this.

d) I really don't think I'm bragging. I'm just being self-indulgent to see every awesome thing that has happened to me in one place. I'm not looking for a pat on the back, because really all of this stuff is a pat on the back in and of itself (however I won't stop you) And they're not in choronological order. They're reasons I'm proud of myself at 2am.

• Etsy made a video about me. FREAKING WOW!
• I was in a Barenaked Ladies video for which my friend Noah Ginex did all his fancy-pants stuff (but he still credited me as a co-concept, set designer, assistant puppet builder, and puppeteer. I did do those things, and feel as though my roles were very minor, but it's really nice to actually be recognized for what I did do)
• I've taught at-risk youth for 4 years the art of puppetry. That right there is something big because someone trusted me enough to do that. And man, kids are really great at writing scripts.
• I was asked to make some last-minute puppets that were in two Phoenix Coyotes commercials. One with Wayne Gretzky (yeah, take that, Canada! I totally got to them before you did!)
• I was commissioned to make 5 puppets of and for 5 famous people (2 of them are legends...one has her own Webster's Dictionary entry) and they now own those puppets. What a kick-tuchus privilege.
• I've won awards for my film-making & writing with puppetry, and have shared those proudly with my friend Mack.
• I've sustained performing puppet shows for grown-ups in Phoenix for 7 years.
• I've managed to send my puppets to people in more than 10 different countries. (like..they even asked for them)
• I was asked to be an artist for The NewTimes Best of Phoenix edition.
• I've managed to titilate more than 3650 people on Etsy.com enough that they've added my shop as a favorite. (freakin' a!)
• People like what I write. (well, up until now, anyway)
• I'm pursuing something that I've loved since I was a toddler. I feel connected to my grandfather, who--even though he died when I was very young, I admired greatly.
• I was asked to make finger puppet kits for the MakerShed (Craft Magazine's online store) & even saw my finger puppets printed in their magazine in an ad for the store! &
• I was invited to be a demonstrator at the MakerFaire
• I've been to Toronto to "work" with awesome puppeteers
• I've received scholarships to puppetry festivals...People want me to learn, grow, and succeed!

I think of myself as this kid who is still trying to find her place (with her puppets) in the arts world....I forget that I've been recognized. I don't forget that my life is really rad & that really awesome stuff has happened to me (well, I forget some of the things)...but I do forget to see the big picture of it all. So here, now at 2:15am, I can see that I don't need to search for my place. I have my place. I've got this nice little plot of land. Now I get to lay down some irrigation & watch my seedlings grow into something even more amazing. Or are my plants already growing and I just need to sit back & enjoy each step of seeing the fruit form? Or is the fruit already there & all I need to do is harvest and eat it? Either way, something needs to be enjoyed.

Mmmm delicious, delicious puppet pie!

Autumn Pumpkin

More and more I'm realizing that I love Autum. Part of that may be because it's a huge break from our wretched summer. Part of it is that I'm older & don't dread, but rather look forward to back-to-school. And part of it, I think the main part, is that I've grown to appreciate the beauty of nature in that this is a time that (bear with me, I'm getting all I-love-the-Earth on you) we're given all of these wonderful things back from Nature. We work hard to plant things all year, and this is the time of year that so many wonderful vegetables are coming back to us. I can't wait for butternut squash soup and pumpkin pie. Even just the smell of the basil coming off of the garden at my son's school fills me with such ooey gooey feelings that I can't help but be thankful and slip out of the internet and into nature.

I'm totally reflective today.