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bustedpuppet
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San Jose, CA
"As with his songs, there is no showmanship, legerdemain, pretense or fanfare in the presentation of this non-traditional puppetry. On stage, Dax has a deceptively casual manner - meanwhile, glowing stars pop out of suitcases of their own accord, and apparitions rise out of heaps of cardboard and collapse just as quickly. Nothing is hidden in the straight-forward construction of the puppets and apparatuses, and yet each piece unfolds a moment of magic that is as moving as it was direct. These shows cleverly present the fascination that has been lost to us since childhood, though you wouldn't imagine how simply it was achieved."
Blair Thomas - Artistic Director of Blair Thomas & Co. Chamber Puppet Theater, founder of Redmoon Theater, Chicago, IL.
In July of 2007 I ran across puppeteer Blair Thomas at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Without warning or apology, puppets immediately took over my artistic practice. I apprenticed with the Blair Thomas & Co. from 2007-2008, building and performing in many grand projects that presented at venues from the Storefront Theater to the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and even the Pritzker Pavillion in Millenium Park. At the end of the 2008, I left my position as Shop Foreman with Blair to begin my own puppetry career. My deepest thanks to everyone in the Chicago puppetry community who has helped me find this medium. I hope to do you all proud some day.
In the Autumn of 2009, I conducted my first national solo tour to present three of these shows in their completed form, alongside original songs performed with accordions and wine glasses. Returning to my home town in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2010, I am founding my very own puppet company, who's first full-scale production is the Kickstarter project, "The Museum Proper."
[Dax holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the California College of Arts and Crafts, and an MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.]
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Recent Posts by bustedpuppet
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bustedpuppet
Posted project update #3Shopping!
This is a belated thank you to everyone who's helped so far with the project! The fundraiser closed on Sunday night, and, as you can see, the project cleared $2300! Once again, it's such a pleasure to know we're going into this project with so much support. My thanks to all these generous donations, big and small, and to everyone who showed support in other ways!
As for an update: I've spent the beginning of the week doing menial organizing like laying out spreadsheets for budget and materials and setting up a separate bank account, so I apologize that I haven't had anything exciting to post yet ;). This afternoon, however, I took my materials list for the Bandersnatch puppet down to the hardware store, and have come back with treasure! Again, I cannot really express how good it feels to have a real budget to purchase materials, and I thought of all of you while I was picking out the hardware. In addition, we've just signed on puppeteer Susie Danzig to the project, which is incredibly exciting - Susie is a truly gifted puppeteer who has been working, notably, with San Francisco's Lunatique Fantastique forever. Corpus Callosum had our first big meeting about the musical score last night, and everyone is looking forward to working on the piece. I am also starting to discuss logistics with the SubZERO Festival organizers, which means that it is also time for me to draw up the final round of storyboards! Look for those soon on the Museum Proper Flickr stream!
And, of course, now I'm going to send you a whole bunch of stuff :). For those of you who will be receiving Museum Proper Collages, I've already begun a pile of cardboard scraps, which is rapidly growing. I predict it could take a month or so of working on the puppets before I'll have enough scraps from the project to make collages for all 19 of you, so look for those in April! To my great excitement, the Museum Proper sketchbook has been accepted to the KALEID Gallery Sketchbook exhibition this month - the entire sketchbook, along with some other original watercolors, will be on public display through the end of March. For those of you who I am sending sketchbook pages to, you can expect to receive them in early April as well. As stated above, the storyboards are coming up, and will be going out shortly, and I will be sending along the concept art watercolors as soon as I can find suitable packaging! I love giving gifts, especially through the mail, and so it makes me quite happy to be able to send these "rewards" out - almost as much as making the puppets themselves :).
Oh yes, and if you would like to come see the sketchbook in the gallery, the opening is from 5-7PM this Friday at KALEID, 88 S Fourth St, San Jose, CA - the gallery has daytime hours through March 26th. I will be in attendance, if you would like to stop by to say hello! If you end up in San Jose this Friday for that event, too, I have been doing a live-painting for the Cinequest film festival all week, and the still-wet canvas will be on display at Camera 12 on 2nd Street.
Yours,
Dax -
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bustedpuppet
commented on a projectBen: There's a lot of creative people involved in The Museum Proper, so the list of our projects are fairly diverse. I'll list a few URLs where you can find other projects by the various contributors to The Museum Proper. If you're looking for puppetry work, specifically, I'm hoping to have a dedicated website up before the June premier... you will certainly be notified ;) Thanks again! http://www.norestforthewicked.biz http://qarly.com/ http://www.onefleacircus.com http://www.corpus.cc http://www.chicag0.org
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bustedpuppet
Posted project update #2Prototyping!
So the project has just cleared $2000, which is wonderful and amazing. I am so glad that funds can be raised in such a way in this day and age, and am feeling quite lucky to be able to go ahead with such an adventurous project.
There will be 10 more days to make donations, so please keep passing the video around. If we can get to $2500, I can ensure that all the puppeteers get a reasonable stipend for all their work.
Also, I've finished the first prototype, which is a 1:10 cardboard model of the Bandersnatch (the big puppet)! I was trying to figure out how to make an apparatus for the enormous head that would give it the most amount of life. I spent a lot of time pouring over Handspring's War Horse videos on youtube, frame by frame, hoping that they would have some genius I could steal - but ended up figuring that I would need a fairly different approach from theirs. The problems were solved pretty easily once I got to building, and it looks like I'll only need two ball-joints, supplemented by a few bungee cords (I love when things are simple...). I'm probably going to get a little more adventurous and build the final head 50% larger than it is on the model. While I was at the workbench, I went ahead and finished the entire model, just to make sure that my thoughts for the legs and tail were reasonable - which it looks like they are. I've shot a short video of the model, if you'd like to see how the thing will move!
I can't wait for March when I can go out and get materials for the full-size puppet!
From the Workshop Proper,
Dax
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bustedpuppet
Posted project update #1The Puppets Shall Be Built
At 10:45PM PST last night The Museum Proper cleared it's first goal of $1300 - less than 48 hours after uploading the video! I'm still giddy knowing for sure that the project will be happening. I'm personally quite moved by the enormous and enthusiastic support of the project, and I know my collaborators feel similarly. My excitement is not only because there is apparently so much interest in seeing a puppet project take the streets, but also because this success is a testament to the viability of non-commercial artwork. My deepest thanks.
Now that I have the promise of a materials budget, I will be taking a bit of initiative to start building prototypes for the different apparatuses that will be involved. Though the fund raiser will continue through the end of the month (and we will not be collecting any of the money from donors until then), I'm far too eager to get started with the building. I will be posting photos of the prototypes to this Kickstarter Updates blog, as well as to the flickr stream ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/28515246@N02/sets/72157623223930567/ ).
And it's wonderful that we continue to receive donations (while I was writing this, the project cleared $1400)! As I mentioned before, if we raise another few hundred dollars we'll be able to cover ourselves in case of construction catastrophe, which is all part of the building process. After that, any additional donations will create stipends for the many people working on the project (puppeteers, musicians, builders), to ensure that we will all be here for future projects. As with all art projects this is a labor of love, although it is still our dream that we might one day make a living doing this work. So please keep spreading the word about the project, showing the video to everyone you know - The Museum Proper greatest victory will be proving that independent puppetry is a respectable career.
Thank you all.
Dax -
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bustedpuppet
commented on a projectThanks everyone for so much support so far! It makes me giddy thinking about moving forward with this project. I also forgot to mention in the appeal that, since we are really raising this money for materials, in-kind donations are just as useful to the project as anything else. If you don't have cash to spare, but are sitting on a pile of good construction materials somewhere in the SF Bay Area, please let me know! We can certainly use extra lumber, hardwood scraps, pink insulation foam, and upholstery-weight fabrics. And if you live in the SF area, are a puppet builder, puppeteer, or work in costume-crafts, and you'd like to lend a hand, we'd love to get to know you! Dax
