No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on May 23, 2012

The Internet has changed a lot about fandom. It is much easier for fans of the same thing to find each other. There is plenty of fanfic and fan art to peruse. Recreation costuming has become so much easier with a lot of information at our fingertips. Some times too much information. I really don’t think there is more drama now than then, it is just a little more in public and more rapid to spread. Fans can give Actors a run for the Drama Queen or King title.

The first time I did the Vincent costume from the TV series Beauty and the Beast back in 1987/88, my friends and I had one issue of Starlog, fuzzy video tapes of the TV series, and a couple of photos from the newspaper. That was it. And we worked very hard to create what we thought we saw. Now we had the good luck that George RR Martin was at the convention (well not that good luck since one of the reasons we wanted to do it was because he was going to be there) and he sat down with us and went over the costume giving us insight into what we had gotten right and where we were just a bit off. He was impressed that we had done as well as we had considering what we were working off of. The reason there was no clear photo of the make-up was because they always shot it (and the photo shoots) through a gauzy filter to soften it. So we took the information and redid the costume to make Vincent Mark 2 which was much closer to screen accurate.

Fast forward a number of years and we decide to do the sketch Beauty and the Beast(s). Since I still had the foam mask for Vincent and it still fit my face and was is pretty good condition, I was going to be Vincent. I didn’t really have anything from the previous costume except the mask. Some pieces belonged to the other people who worked on the costume. The good cloak got stolen at a bar on Halloween. The sweater I used had been worn out. So I decided to go on the Internet and see if I could find photos I could use to recreate my recreation. I remembered most of what George told us that night so I had that. I found a lot of pictures out there including the fact that the costume had been sold at auction pretty piecemeal so I had good photos of all the pieces front and back. That made it so much easier to recreate.

I have been part of Doctor Who fandom for quite a while now. When I started it was hard to find in the US unless your PBS station happen to be showing it. I lucked out by meeting a bunch of Doctor Who fans at a convention. A number of people that were in that room are still friends of mine. We hung out and watched Doctor Who. Some of us wrote for fanzines. And over the years I have made a lot of friends through that one TV show.

I was invited to a viewing of the Doctor Who movie in 1996 with what was left of the Terminus TARDIS in Atlanta (a lot of us moved around the country by that point). We had a great time and took over one of the local sports bar to watch. The sports fans were puzzled by this but a number of them watched along with us which was interesting because they didn’t know anything about Doctor Who. Afterwards we were talking about the movie and the PMEB was born from a couple off hand comments. This was also the night I took on the DragonCon Challenge to make one of each of the Doctors as puppets. I got an email a couple of days later and joined the PMEB. That is really my first online fandom that I participated in. It is also the first time I found screen captures of the movie. It was a lot of fun and I kept up with the group for quite a while.

Now fandom seems to happen before the actual product is released which, for me, is a little weird because I need to see before I squee.

I am grateful for fans of things I like. It is nice to have other people to talk to about them.

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Posted By Kathleen David on May 22, 2012

I am taking this from questions that I got at the blogs, by e-mail, and from a conversation I had the other day with my bowling league.

1) Why do you share so much of your work?
Probably because I was raised by teachers who believe that teaching others is a calling and I have that calling.

I know there are people who carry how they do something close to the vest. I figure, especially for the puppets, that I would rather have that knowledge out there and growing rather than all to myself. I have learned so much from so many and I want to share that knowledge with others. I think the only things I don’t show are things that I learned that I promised not to show and I respect the people who taught me to keep their trust by not telling. I figure if what I do inspires someone else, then I have done something good in the world.

2) Have you ever built a full-body puppet (like Sweetums)? And how long did it take?

Yes I have several times. Most of them are for costume calls at various conventions. I made a Stitch in an Elvis costume for a Buffy sketch. I made a Disney Beast for Beauty and the Beasts. I built a dinosaur and rebuilt some full body dino puppets. How long did it take? Well depends on when it was in my build career. I have learned tricks that over time makes it easier to construct. But I would say a couple of days if that is all that I am doing.

3) How do you decide what to work on next?

It starts with the most pressing deadline and goes from there. If there isn’t a pressing deadline then it is whatever won’t go away from my head. This past year I made the Chuck and Eric puppets because they wouldn’t go away. Sometimes something just strikes my fancy and it gets made. Other times I try things I haven’t done before just to see if I can do them.

4) What do you make your puppets out of like the Purple People Eater?

The puppet I am talking about
I use fleece over ¼ to ½ inch foam. The foam allows me to create a structure to put the fleece over that maintains the shape of the puppet. I used pretty much the standard fleece that you can get at just about any fabric store. The holy grail of puppet fleece is Antron Fleece which can be dyed just about any color you want and hides the seams beautifully. However it is very expensive about 25 a yard rather than from 8 to 3 a yard depending if you have a coupon. I love it but it puts too much cost to a puppet that I am selling to the general public. It is a little different on the commissioned pieces. The horn was made out of white Crayola model magic which I then painted to make it look more like bone (picked that trick up at the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA) and refined the trick due to things I learned from the Frouds. The “fur” is a feather boa which has made my life so much easier in terms of puppet hair. The mouth is thick cardboard covered by red cloth. The one eye is a piece of craft foam and a black sharpie with a piece of purple fabric for the eyelid.

5) What did you learn over time that you wished you had known when you started?

For the puppets it was that unless I was going to redress the puppet, I didn’t have to make all the buttonholes for the clothing. That took a long time and really don’t add anything to the look of the finished puppet.

Most of the rest have been things that were more valuable because I learned from them so I know why I don’t do it another way.

6) How long does it take you to make a puppet?

Well the Purple People Eater was done in less than 8 hours and I had to pattern part of him. But that was an extreme example. For a basic puppet including a t-shirt and the hand rods, I have it down to 4 hours but that is after a lot of practice. Things that can slow me down are having to create patterns from scratch, having to go get more fabric to finish up, or not being able to find that one thing I need to finish the puppet properly. So I don’t start until I have all my pieces that I need to do the whole project so I don’t get frustrated half way through.

7) Which is easier, costumes for puppets or people?

For me it has to be puppets but then I was building clothing for puppets way before I made anything for people. There is the matter of scale and puppet details can be very very tiny but it is worth it for the whole effect. I have gotten good at people sized clothing but it takes a lot longer to do a shirt for a human than it does for a puppet. I do enjoy the challenge of making a costume and figuring out ways to recreate the look of something.

8) What are you working on next?

This would have been a different answer a week ago but right now it is puppets for Field Day where we are doing a show that takes place under the sea. I need to make and refurbish a number of puppets for it. Fortunately I had done a show like it many moons ago so I know how I am going to build everything. Two weeks for all that. So that is going to be my next couple of Crafty Tuesdays.

I am grateful for all the questions I was asked. It gave me things to think about. (I am still taking questions if you got them)

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Posted By Kathleen David on May 21, 2012

Last night on our PBS station the episode entitled The Reichenbach Fall from the Steven Moffat’s series Sherlock aired. And, as promised many months ago, I said I would give you my solution to the mystery presented.

This will be behind the cut and I am allowing for spoilers and speculation in the comments. So you have been warned.

A few thoughts on the very short season presented to us. They picked the most famous stories out of the Holmes’ cannon to play off of. The Irene Adler episode was, for the most part, pitch perfect both in story and acting. I had a few quibbles but over all it was quite fun and the ending had a lot of fans either happy or sad. The Hounds of the Baskerville did show how you could take an old story and make it fit into the world today with not much change except bringing modern tech into it.

Of the three I did like Reichenbach the best but then there was Moriarty in that one and they found a jewel in Andrew Scott to play Moriarty much differently than cannon lore but really very much in the vein of the original. And then there was the end which was brilliant and heart breaking all at the same time.

(more…)

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Posted By Kathleen David on May 20, 2012

I still remember picking my first set of classes for high school. I had my parents with me and we went over both my placement (which changed the next year) and the other courses available to me at the high school. I remember that when I told the counselor that I wanted to take Intro to Shop, he tried to steer me to Home Economics. Not once but several times. My parents backed up my decision so I was slated to take shop. Now why that was unusual was because at the time girls didn’t take shop or were allowed to take shop but due to some court rulings, the school had to let girls take shop which the head of the program wasn’t too happy with.

There were two other girls in my shop class. We were put together any time there was a project to be done. The class made a lamp and a paper towel holder to start but the latter half of the year we had to design a piece of furniture and then build it. The girls decided to make something that would hold records and a record player on top. We took measurement and drew up what we wanted to make and it took us most of the rest of the time to do so since we had to glue boards together to get the width we needed for the case. We got all three done and were darn proud of them. I think I still have mine somewhere.

I went from shop to graphic design and photography with the same teacher who was a little more comfortable with girls in his classroom. I had a lot of great teachers and I learned a lot in high school but the practical skills I learned in shop class are things that I use to this day.

Somewhere along the way the idea of vocational educational became a dirty idea. It was where kids were put and marginalized that didn’t fit into the regular school system. Also there was this school of though that everyone should go to college and get a degree. College for everyone was a politically correct idea that was not really thought through and our drop out rates soared. Some people aren’t cut out for college and that doesn’t mean they are stupid or lazy but that they learn differently and without the vocational education programs that use to give them the skills and discipline, they found themselves out with no job skills to speak of.

So now schools are re-examing the education of our children. Vocational Education is now being called Career and Technical Education and it teaches practical skills for working in the world today. They have training programs with local businesses where students get real life experience and the businesses get workers who have the set of skills they need to succeed. There are jobs out there but we haven’t been giving the people the choice and the skills to make these jobs into careers.

In some ways we have lost a generation or two to this idea of everyone should go to college. And in doing so we have fewer people graduating with practical skills that they can use to get a job. (Think Princeton’s song “What do you do with a BA in English” from Avenue Q). The problem with the undergrad degree is a lot of times there are an assumption of graduate school in the offing and once you get that grad degree then you have what employers want. Which leads to an entire generation going into serious debt because they have been told that this is what they need to do to further themselves.

Now in the spirit of full disclosure, I have a BA from Emory University in Atlanta and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. The drama school degree did help open doors for me in my stage management career and I did earn my Equity card while I was there. But I am glad that I did take the shop and graphic arts courses that I did in high school because when I was working in the theater, I already had a skill set that made me useful to a theater company because I knew how to put sets together and build things that didn’t fall apart. I had practical knowledge of electricity and circuitry that allows me to do lighting and fix lighting that wasn’t working. And that has helped me a lot through out my life.

If we need to rebrand it as Career and Technical education so be it but we need to make sure that students are given more than one choice in high school. We need to help those students who do learn differently and make sure that they can graduate with a skill set that will make them valuable to businesses and give them shots at careers that they really aren’t going to have if all they do is dropout because they are frustrated with the academic process.

I am grateful for the vocational education I got in high school.

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Posted By Kathleen David on May 19, 2012

Feels like Fall this morning

But it is Spring going into Summer. It is crisp with a light breeze.

Today is about driving people to where they need to go and then waiting. Ariel has a job interview at a camp for a summer position so think good thoughts for her.

Next Saturday is our 11th wedding anniversary. We have plans that may or may not stay in place depending on a couple of phone calls this week. I am hoping that we won’t have to change everything but there are good reasons if we did.

Still looking for my portfolio of my previous work. Starting to get worried about it. It is not where I thought I had put it so now I have to extend my search. It would not be great if I lost the photos of about 20 years worth of puppets I have built.

My arms are a little sore from yesterday’s activities including Caroline and I swimming at the family swim hour at the local Y. She likes to play around in the deep end and she is a pretty good swimmer but I stay close and we play. I ended up treading water for most of the 45 minutes so this morning I can feel exactly which muscle sets I used in my arms and chest. It‘s all fine because this is the good kind of pain. With any luck I’ll be ready for my arm workout next Tuesday.

So now I need to feed my child and get the day moving the direction it needs to go.

I am grateful for the positive phone calls.

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