Where is summer going?

At the beginning of the summer I had several projects laid out for me.

1) make a few videos
2) make some more hand puppets
3) animate *something*
4) finger puppets galores
5) maybe enroll the boy-child into swim lessons

I thought, Wow, I've got a lot of time to kill this summer!

Now its June 7th. Officially 1 week into June. We leave for vacations (and puppetry festivals!) for most of July (anyone want to cat-sit?). That means I only have three weeks left before my time to work on projects comes to an end! Yikes? Yikes, indeed.

First priority- Custom orders. I've got two to finish by the end of June. Totally doable.

Second Priority- Etsy video. To be honest, I'll likely do this sometime this week--before the two custom orders are done. I need to get it up as soon as possible--it's just a matter of writing out an acceptable dialog and then turning on the camera. Writing the acceptable dialog is the difficult part.

Third Priority- Make hand puppets! I've been stalling on making more hand puppets for my etsy shop for a long time, now. It probably has something to do with the fact that I need to clean my craft space.

Fourth Priority- I've been wanting to make some videos with my finger puppets. I want to make them elaborate, but I don't know where to go from there. I just know: Elaborate.

Throughout everything- Finger puppets. This is something I can do every day. I could probably make gazillions of these in a month, but to be honest, it's a matter of not knowing what to make sometimes. I mostly rely on my friends to tell me what they want me to make--if I get inspired from that, usually it's a winner (i.e. safety cone). But if I could, my brain would just make bunnies and puppies and kittens and mice (that, let's be honest, all look roughly the same when I make them). So if you have ideas, go ahead and leave them in the comments. I might make it. I'm trying not to make too many elaborate finger puppets right now, mostly because the price-points are more than anyone is really willing to pay for 2" of felt right now. And hey, I still might make it if it's a completely awesome idea.

I'm getting all serious about poop

As the title would suggest, I'm getting serious about poop. And I don't mean I'm making more toilet paper finger puppets. Not until the first one sells, anyway. I mean that I'm setting up goals! I'm asking myself if I'm successful. I'm pursuing talking about success so I can avoid actually taking action on that success. (I'm honest, right?)

So I set out some goals for myself. As I mentioned...yeah. I'm on codeine (legally). Give a girl a break.

I often get a bug in my butt to go posting to Etsy.com's forums about how to succeed in life. And I give amazingly good advice. Such good advice that I actually sell it. And people actually buy it (crazy, right?). So this is a refined post to the forums that got ignored, but I don't want myself to forget it. So I'm posting it here so I can go back and read it like a narcissist.

Some of them are pretty darn generic. OK, most of them are. It's like they don't really tell me anything, but it sounds pretty.

Ready? Are you? You don't care, do you, you just want to see pictures of puppets. I made dead jam the other night. It's nice. I'll get photographs up once my ruptured eardrum (yes, ouch) allows me to get up and do things. like shower. (I know).

OK so some of these things have already happened, so that's awesome. Some I'm still waiting on. That's okay. In fact, I think it's good.

Artistically I'll know I'm succeeding if:
1. People all over the world are viewing my work. And smiling.
2. I get compliments on my work.
3. I'm creating new work that isn't forced.
4. My work is represented in multiple cultures/countries and speaks to a broad population.
5. I gain recognition among peers in my field.

Businessly(totally a word, I did not just make up that word):
1. People buy my work.
2. Enough people buy my work that I survive.
3. I have 1000 fans that spend at least $10 each year.
4. I gain at least 100 hearts/month*


Ways to make it happen:
1. Not treating it like a job, but rather treating it as though I'm positively surviving on loving what I do./Focus deeply on loving what I do.
2. Seeking out avenues locally to display and showcase my work.
3. Pursuing education in my art form so I don't become stagnant.
4. Introducing my work to people outside of my selling venues.
5. Establish meaningful connections with fans. But not in a whore-y way.
6. Seeking out support from other artists, both in my field and elsewhere.
7. Not allowing myself to not create. Pushing past the runner's wall.


OK so some of those sound a little gay. (Pause--I tried to think of a synonym for this that would still convey the fact that I understand that I know I'm being really....uh..gay about it all, that wasn't offensive, but I'm taking codeine and my brain-thesaurus isn't working properly, so gay it is!--Unpause) But that's what I came up with for goals. I have a few specific goals that I didn't put here because I just didn't. I don't need to justify to you people!........Ok so it's because it's just businessy stuff that probably isn't useful to anyone but me. A laundry list, if you will.

*For those of you who don't know, "hearts" on Etsy.com are given to you when someone adds your shop or item to their favorite bookmarks to their profile. So the goal here is to have 100 people add my shop to their favorites per month. I could just say that, but hearts sounds more cutesy. And if I'm all about anything, it's cutesy. Hence the bloody tampon. Schmadorable.

Oh, and somewhere in the middle, I threw in a picture of a daisy in a jar. I've decided that jars are the way to go when packaging my finger puppets for in-person shops. I suppose if people want, they can have jars in the mail. I'm sorry Amanda, but I really, really like it. Thems is funny to me.

On that note, you should come watch me every Tuesday night at 11pm EST on blogtv. because you need further proof that I'm a dork. Yes, watch me make finger puppets and chat with the people. My good friend and fellow puppeteer, Mack Duncan usually co-hosts with me.

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.....