I've made my first purchase of puppets.  At an estate sale this week in my home town there were 5 Wayang Golek puppets up for sale.  As we were walking in there was a lady purchasing one; I got a bit worried.  If she's getting just one perhaps they're all gone already. Thus ensued a semi frantic search through the house, ignoring other objects, to find the puppets. Success was to be had, as I found the remaining four puppets. 

They are in reasonable condition.  Some paint chipping here and there, some of the costumes need a few stitches of thread, but on the whole they're pretty well intact.  I do wish they all had the more traditional stands.  Three of them were sitting in wine bottles. On two of them the heads weren't properly attached.  Next week I'll talk to Alan at IPM and see what he thinks about options for proper attachment.

Pictures to come at a later date!!

On Tuesday I sent in an e-mail application to the Henson company for their "Sales and Production" internship. The next day I actually got a short response back.  It's exciting!!  The prospect of interning for the Henson company is quite a sweet one.  Talk about a great place to be to build my knowledge and experience of puppets.  It may not be directly involved with the creation of the puppets themselves, however learning about the sales and the production side of a powerful company such as this one is a fantastic opportunity to gain a better understanding of the business world.  More updates soon I hope.

Spent my Wednesday with the International Puppetry Museum this week.  My normal task of organizing the puppets, making sure they have all the proper cards, tags, and numbers was postponed.  Instead the whole group was focused on pulling puppets for a children's museum in Utah.  They're setting up an exhibit all about fairy tales and have requested a large number of the puppets from the North American grouping. 

This job was exciting because it was incredibly new. I've been working on organizing the Europe puppet boxes which means I've seen A LOT of Punch and Judy puppets. This time thought I had the joy of looking through boxes filled with puppets by Tatterman's Marionettes,Tony Sarg, Lesselli Company, Tony Urbano and many more.  I have to say that Tatterman's puppets for Peer Gynt could knock the breath out of you purely based off the masterful creations that they are.  The combination of facial expressions and the costume work is fantastic.  Even the controls are basically works of art.

Volunteering at IPM is often a highlight.  I enjoy the company of the people who regularly work there, the people who drop in from time to time, and of course the puppets. I thank you all for allowing me the opportunity.