Puppet Avant Garde

I spent this past week visiting an amazing friend in the wilderness of Minnesota. It's so far off the beaten path, that they are not on Google maps, and it's on purpose. They live in a dome house by their own design, he farms¹, she does...well, just about everything. She is a multidisciplinary artist. Trust me, this woman works hard. She's the hardest workin' woman in show business, at least that's my opinion. Anyways, she's damned talented, that's for sure.

I know those of you out there that come here for toy theatre are starting to think, what is this post about?! Well, it's about puppets, that's what. My friend among many, many other things is an comic and cartoon artist. She got it into her head awhile back to bring her creations to life, so to speak, and began a journey of recreating them off the page in puppet form. The photos here show their genesis, from small crude handmade versions, to less crude (but still - purposely - crude-but-improved) versions. Eventually, she made them into large, full-scale versions. Not only are they large scale, but they are detailed down to anatomically-correct genitalia. Yeah, you read right. Also, nipples, piercings, tattoos, fingernails, tongues, teeth, eyelashes...the details are mindboggling and impressive. And yeah, there are damned good reasons for this. If you take the time to not only check out, but delve further into the world of these characters, you'll see why they are made this way. My friend's stories are violent, sexual, disturbing. They are not cute in a Disney sense (although there can be cute moments of a type), but they are not supposed to be. To paraphrase her, she exorcises her demons through her art and writing in these characters and storylines. Those of us lucky enough to run across these stories are invited to come into her looking-glass world if we dare. I hope you do...I dare ya.

Their stories are at Rasputin Catamite, Polska Sucka, Killer Dyke, and Upir's Mark...

¹ - He is also an artist, in his spare time!