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.

Due to my current lack of a regular, paying position anywhere I had been looking for something to fill my time. In November I found it.  I have been spending my Wednesdays volunteering at the International Puppetry Museum in Pasadena. There I've been tasked with the challenge of properly organizing all the puppets in their collection.  The storage system is broken down by continent and it has been my job to go through the boxes starting with Europe Box 1 and get everything in line with the system that they've set up.  It can be tedious work to unwrap each puppet, re-write each card (two per puppet), then tag, re-wrap and re-box everything, however, I get a huge kick out of being able to see so many different types of puppets and that alone can make my day.  On top of this, the individuals running the Museum are a joy to be around. Alan Cook, who it seems owns majority of the collection, radiates excitement and will tell you anything that you want to know about the art of puppetry. I look forward to getting back there after the holidays.