Jun 25, 2016

The Puppeteer

The Puppeteer

Today was a quiet Saturday afternoon.the kind that reminded of my childhood in Connecticut watching old TV shows like "Bonanza" as puffy lazy clouds floated over blue skys that whitened meeting the ground, and while the fan quietly swirled in the apartment window cooling the family in the hot summer heat, accept this time I found myself at the NewBritain American Museum of Art in the Connecticut city NewBritain.
      I was invited along with other artist to a last themed model drawing session of the group. I showed up about five or ten minutes before and saw our model.  He was a friendly and serious puppeteer who received a master degree in his craft and had attended national conventions on the subject.
    The event was arranged by the group's diligent and enthusiastic group leader. She has consistently arranged for interesting models and places to draw. At the museum she even had a guitar player there for ambience who played soft cerebral rhythms and blues notes .
   It was near afternoon and the early summer sun beat down on us as we drew. Some artist managed to find places in the shade on the front entrance patio of the museum. I decide to scarf ice for my craft and took a spot in the sun were I could see and imagine intersecting angles of our model. I worked out ideas on the paper and in my mind then I finally began to draw. Curious visitors entering the museum look  at me and the others as we drew.
  Below is the picture of the innocuous puppet artist as he humbled himself and breathed life into his instrument, a carved and exaggerated facsimile of human expression of which  he moved and we believed this lifeless thing was sad, happy, and had over come some tragic life story.