Copyrights, Fan-Art, and You

Ok, so I might be opening a giant can of worms (read that: passionate discussion) but I thought I'd take a chance on it just being an interesting topic.

As most of us know, if we make a variation of something that someone else has made, then it's considered a derivative work (or fan-art). It therefore wouldn't violate US Copyright laws.

I was recently pointed to a blog on which I was featured (by the author). She said how much she liked my finger puppets & one in particular. She then said, that because she liked it so much, she felt she must own it and therefore put it on her to-do list to make it for herself.

Now instantly I thought, but..but...it's mine! I made it! You can buy it, but I made it! You can't make it! It's mine! (you can see that my instant thoughts are much like that of an advanced 2-year-old)

I encouraged her to make her own designs (or buy the kits Craft: sells). She meant no malice whatsoever, and seems to be a very nice person. There's no sense in meanly saying, "yeah but dude, copyright." to very nice people. Of course I'd prefer for her to buy the puppet flat out, but I don't know her situation, so I can't expect or push for that. And really, it boils down to the fact that I am very thankful that people like my work, especially enough to write about it...

Well, now that I'm far, far away from the situation (a week is far, far away, right?), I'm left to think about fan-art. There is nothing to keep her from making this puppet for herself. No one would really know if she did. But legally, if she wanted to, she could make all of my puppets with mustaches, as long as she doesn't distribute or profit from them in any way.

I guess I'd just never before thought about fan art based on my own work. I know I'm not the first to experience this, and I certainly won't be the last, so I'm curious to hear about others' opinions on the matter.

Alright then: Opinion away!

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.

Maker Day!

So here I am in California. I was able to attend Maker Day for the Maker Faire yesterday, and met a LOT of wonderfully geeky guys and gals. Mostly guys! The makers are into programming and hacking into things, making things with gears, soldering, and dremeling which is lovely. Someone had a machine that was a tongue to lick a lollipop with the turn of a crank. A gentleman who goes by the name of Doc was telling me about his boy on a bicycle and his next goal being to animate his face. The boy's, not his own.
Another guy I met, Simran, has made (to the best of me being able to describe things) an application that uses the wonder of virtual gravity and boxes and things crashing together in pretend-space to create a symphony of music. It's a very cool app & reminds me a lot of Electroplankton by Nintendo. (Which is a lovely little "game")

When I talk to most any of the makers--especially the ones who make baby arms move by sensors in the feet, or people who are exploring using ventriloquist dummy parts to create robots-- I think about how these things can merge in the world of puppetry. Puppetry overlaps to nearly every art-form. Hackers, programmers, visual artists, fiber artists, welders, woodworkers, actors and vocalists all have their important and vital roles in puppetry. WOW. I can't wait to talk about puppetry on Sunday and how each and every person there should become involved with it in some way.

Want to see a picture of me at Maker? Yes. So silly I am. I took a trip to the Maker Shed to see my kits displayed and they were sitting right next to John Kennedy's Puppet Planet. That's pretty darn rad, if I do say.

Happy New Puppets!

Since I last wrote anything here, a new year has begun, a puppet show has been created, and 4 show puppets have been built. This show was a collaboration between a fellow puppeteer & myself. It was the first show that we've done together in 5 years without another puppeteer whom we regularly performed with. I wasn't sure if we could pull it off. I wasn't sure if our humor would be of the same caliber, or if I could make the amount of puppets needed without his help. I'm so very pleased with how everything turned out. There's a sad empty space where the person in our group used to be, but we've survived our first round of shows without him there. I've passed the test I put myself through. I'm proud of myself. I'm proud of the other puppeteer. We work well together.

I'm going to now go into a mom thing....I can't help but record this little moment. I'm on the laptop in my bed...the boy asleep next to me. His tiny little hand stretched out and relaxed & his fingers are so soft. I keep grabbing them & he clenches them up a bit more. They remind me of his baby hands. I love that he wants to grow up to be an artist. Even if he choses math or sports, I'll be OK. For now, I'll enjoy that he reminds me of his newborn puppy-boy ways when he sleeps.

OK, back to puppet-talk.
With all of the puppets I made this time around, I experimented more with using halves of ping pong balls, instead of whole balls. I think I'll need to be more patient with attaching the ball to the face, so there are no gaps. Filling in the empty spaces with foam is common sense at this point. I love that I'm at a point at which some aspects of puppetry are common sense to me. Not so much for things like arm-rods, or even foam body construction. And a friend did come in and save me with advice for saving a beak.



What's next for puppet building?
I'm going to take my time with some puppets. I'll neglect my Etsy shop just a little bit. I'll spend some serious time with a puppet or two in February. I thought, if this chicken is what I can do in 4 hours...then what could I do with 14 days? Of course, my immediate response is, "well, I can mess around for 12 of those days, think about making the puppet for 2 of those days, then in the last 4 hours I can whip out another one of these." But that's instinct & I'm attempting to go against my instincts.

Oh those little hands on my tummy.....

I'm apparently bad at blogging

I keep meaning to write something of great importance, but I put it off, then I forget about it. It was so important, right?

I've been taking these last couple of weeks to actually be productive. That includes making puppets, listing puppets on etsy, taking pictures of puppets, updating bad pictures of puppets & giving puppet workshops.


Speaking of workshops, the workshop on November 10th was amazing! Thank you to everyone who not only showed up, but showed up with enthusiasm and an open mind to discovering their puppet. Yes, it sounds like a hippie way to build, but sometimes you just have to let go and let puppet...or something like that.

A bit of an amusing story...So about an hour and a half before the workshop, as my husband and I were on our way home from grabbing some last-minute supplies, I start to feel a bit under the weather...the car ride wasn't helping. I just barely made it to the toilet & had some diarrhea of the face. I climbed into bed with the usual post-barfing shakes & called the venue. Basically we decided that if I could do it, I'd do it, but if I couldn't, the people who signed up are all very understanding & some might not mind a postponement. I didn't want to leave anyone hanging, so I decided I'd go as far as I could. If that was 1/2 way through the workshop, then so be it. Thankfully the more I got to thinking about puppets, the less I got to thinking about vomit. The ginger ale helped, too.

There seems to be a trend in my puppet workshops & vomit coming out of my body. 3 hours before I was to leave for New York to give a workshop at the Etsy labs in June, I got the stomach bug that had been going around our home. I decided to still go & had a great time. I think I need to give at least one more workshop for adults to see if this theory holds up.

Puppet-Making Workshops

I'm going to be giving a make-and-take puppetry workshop at The Trunk Space on November 10th. I hope lots of people sign up.

I'm also giving a puppetry workshop in Brooklyn, New York on October 12th. Oh, and I'll hopefully also be giving a kid's workshop in Brooklyn as well! I hope more people sign up for that one because it costs a lot to fly across the country. That and I love teaching. Especially kids...and adults. Man, that's a tough call. It's a really neat experience watching adults turn into little kids when they make puppets and at the same time I love to see a child with that overwhelming power of "OH MY GOSH I MADE A PUPPET!"

Either way, I'll get to see what this strange phenomenon, "Autumn" is. You see, New York has things called "trees," and those trees have "leaves" that actually change colors when it gets cold outside! Its like a hyper-color shirt from the 80's.

Hooray 80's.

Also in the exciting world of me, I'm attempting to develop my website. Not much there right now, but I have a friend who is going to help me. And unlike when most people say, "I'm having a friend help me," I think she'll actually help me. You can check out her stuff here.

Me and the Contests...

So I'm the kid who is always up for a challenge. Especially when that challenge has the potential for a gleaming, shiny prize at the end of it turning it into a contest. I always put a lot of myself into these projects, and whether or not I win, I always grow as a builder and artist. Two puppets, of whom I am very proud, were both products of contests.

Little Pepe Fleece For Eyes was built for Craft Magazine & Etsy's contest to do something amazing with the Craft Logo. So that was one of my ideas (I also made finger puppets of the letters, but I'm less proud of them). I really liked how Pepe came out, and how he manipulates. He's just one of the most comfortable puppets I've made. And I gave him his own tote bag full of things with which to make finger puppets. Brilliant, I know.

Peaches was another contest participant, again through Etsy. This time the rules were to use items that were intended to only have a single use before they went into a dumpster and bring new life to those things that wouldn't have had a life otherwise (broken things..). The idea is called "Upcycling." So I rummaged through the garbage and found egg-crate packaging from our computer, spoons, forks, an old sweater that had a hole in it, a torn bed sheet, and even pink dust from a kool-aid packet. The only new things used for her were staples and glue. Of course she didn't win, but again, I love a challenge. And I learned how to turn literal garbage into something that I felt was worth something. So instead of taking up space in a landfill, she's taking up space on my top shelf in my craft room.


So today I heard about Project Puppet's annual contest. Immediately I thought about how I *should* have bought the pattern when I saw it available at Puppet Rampage! Then I thought about how much I could learn from actually following a pattern to begin with. I know I need to improve my building skills, and I've done the innovating with materials around me thing. Next is to go to the territory in which most people start: Following instructions. So tomorrow I'll buy the pattern. I'll download it, print it and do my best to follow it. Hopefully I'll update my progress here with my frustrations, successes, and photographs of how its all going. The deadline is August 31st, so I know I have some time. I'm very excited to do this. I don't think I'll win, but really, it's a great excuse to not only buy something I've kind-of wanted for a bit now, but to also push myself into being a better artist.

I make puppets.

It's true. I make them. Now, I make blog posts, too.

This is one of the first finger puppets I made. Super Chicken.

It started when I was asked to put my hand puppets into The Trunk Space, a local art gallery here in Phoenix. I had mono and couldn't get up to the sewing machine to make any more hand puppets, so I grabbed my piles of fleece and started making finger puppets. Hamburgers, penguins, whales, mushrooms, lions, cats, dogs, giraffes, monsters, ladybugs, etc. all made it over there. I think I gave them about 35 of them.

I discovered making finger puppets was addictive. Instant gratification. Unlike a hand puppet which takes a lot of time before you get to the fun part of giving it a face, hands, tongues and the what-have-you, with a finger puppet you can add all of those things in about an hour! My living room was covered in thread and fleece. My bedroom was covered in thread and fleece. I think I actually broke our vacuum cleaner because of all the thread that wound around the brushes (really, it was on it's way out anyway...I just finished it off).

A friend of mine was urging me to join a website called Etsy. I figured I had my hands full enough with trying to keep the Trunk Space supplied, so I didn't do it for several months. She finally came over to my house and set up my shop for me. She took me outside to take pictures of my puppets (that picture there is one we took that day) and then we came inside to list them. That was about a year and a half ago. If Etsy has done one thing for me (other than give me some money to fund my puppetry habit), it has been to force me to better my artwork.

By no means do I know a lot about puppetry or puppet building. I have been fortunate enough to work with and for the Great Arizona Puppet Theater, who has one of the most kind directors you'll ever meet. They have done nothing but encourage me and guide me in my less than mediocre puppet building over the last 5-and-a-half years. Because of them, I'm doing what I dreamed of doing as a child. I only regret not having done it sooner.