Worth a look…

I love the creative process. It’s amazing to me to see how creative the human mind is — especially when it’s about ideas and exploring our imaginations. The images below aren’t really puppets, but they involve hands and images…so it made me think of puppets.

Reefer Madness

Wow.

We are up in DC this weekend with performances at the Smithsonian Discovery Theater. We’ve been here the past four years for the week of Thanksgiving. It’s fun — except the whole traffic thing. This year we are doing something a little bit different by staying in DC for Thanksgiving.

In the past, we’ve commuted to Jersey or Richmond for family gatherings, but this year we wanted to just stay. My mom will be commuting instead and coming up here for our fabulous hotel Thanksgiving. We have an oven. I even packed my Dutch Oven. (Not kidding.)

After my two performances today I played tourist. I wandered around, sort of aimlessly, and found myself in front of the Natural History Museum. I was once a docent there and gave tours to Kindergartners in the dinosaur hall. (That was fun — such small children with such big dinosaurs! We even did a puppet show!)  But the wow? The “wow” comes from the surprise of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef.

Backstory: I have been having a love affair with fibers — specifically wool roving and raw silk — of late. Don’t worry, Sam knows all about and puts up with it.  Now I’ve known about this Crochet Reef for years. I stumbled on this knitted and crocheted coral reef on a you-tube clip and just loved the idea. It’s a giant, behometh of a coral reef that has been knitted and crocheted by people all over the world. It was started by two sisters who had a concern for the oceans and nimble fingers.  I can’t explain it, but I was so excited to just stumble upon it today. To see it all in person. I even called some friends. Nobody was home! My family was off at the zoo for the day — it was just me!

My family, for some reason, did not seem to share in my ecstatic joy. Oh well.

I could hardly contain myself.

This just confirms my fiber addiction problem. I need help…or shopping fiber therapy, perhaps. I think that would work. I could just live in my studio in December…maybe my family wouldn’t notice? Hmmmmm……….

Jamboread! (A busy — but fabulous — weekend!)

We will have a number of posts this week on the Jamboread festival at the Spartanburg Library in South Carolina. Wow! All day entertainment for families with three visiting children’s authors, face paiting, musicians, storytelling…and puppets! In their ninth year, the Spartanburg Library has been hosting the Jamboread festival as a way to get families out to the libraries, emphasize the importance of great books, and bring authors and readers together. We had a blast!!

I must mention that the Spartanburg Library was beautiful. Gorgeous! I think you can tell a lot about a community by the resources they invest in their local library system. As Melanie looked out the window, she spotted a nearby building which looked vacant — I liked her idea about moving there! Really, we are staying put in Richmond, but now we have a better sense of what we are looking for in a location: close proximity to a fabulous library!

Our weekend was packed to the gills…really. This was our schedule:

Friday

7AM Finish packing, have breakfast and load up

10:30AM Depart Richmond

1PM Picnic lunch at North Carolina rest area (yes, it was open, Virginia!)

6PM Arrive Spartanburg and unload show

8PM Dinner at “Guadalajara” in Greenville, SC

9PM Check in at hotel…finish making new butterfly puppet (more on this later)….get girls ready for bed

11PM The grown ups (finally) go to sleep.

Saturday

5AM: Alarm!! (Way too early!) Shower, breakfast, load truck

6:45: AM Check-out

7:15AM Arrive at Spartanburg Library, set up show

10:45, 12:15: First and second performances (Sam takes the girls to many activities, they get their faces painted and do cool stuff.)

12:30PM: Lunch!

1:45PM, 3PM: Third and fourth performances

4:15PM: Begin packing, Load truck, chat with Roger Day in the parking lot.

6PM: Head for next hotel in Charlotte, NC

7PM: Grocery store to pick up a few things

8PM: Dinner (prepared by Heidi, mystically, in the hotel — most excellent!)

9PM: Swimming and hot tub!! (OK, the Marco Polo game was a bit loud indoors…Instigated by our own daughter with nine 12-year old boys…)

10PM: Get ready for bed, get clothes out for tomorrow and prepack a few things

11PM: Bedtime

Sunday

5:30AM: Alarm (for the adults — too early. Again.)… Get ready/packed

6:30AM: Wake up the children, get them dressed (much whining — some from the children!)

7AM: Quick breakfast

7:20AM: Check-out and GO!

(Drive, drive, drive, stop a few times, eat snacks in the car)

1PM: Arrive in Richmond — home at last! Time for lunch…and unpacking…and laundry…

Phew!

Check back for photos, courtesy of Melanie, and more info on our fabulous weekend!