So I noticed that a number of MAM artists have been describing their creative process in their posts. That’s not my thing but I thought maybe you would like to get a glimpse of how I made a marionette during the marionette building workshop I took in Prague, along with a mini-travelogue while I’m at it.

When I applied to be in the workshop I had to submit three drawings of designs for marionettes that I wanted to build. We were going to build and perform a play of the story of Sleeping Beauty.

Here are my designs.

They chose the jester for me to build which was great because it was my favorite.

This is the hostel we stayed at- very comfortable, reasonable and a short walk from the workshop

The workshop was all day long. Very intensive. Every morning after an early breakfast we walked from the hostel to the workshop down one of the many beautiful old cobblestones streets.

Unfortunately the city was constantly digging up and replacing the cobblestones.

We made traditional Czech marionettes all carved out of wood. I had never done any wood carving before so it was an incredible challenge.

First we had to draw and measure all the parts of the puppet we were making.

Then we started carving from blocks of basswood. I was used to soft sculpture and papier mache where you start with a core and build on it. With carving you start with a block and cut away.

Here are some puppet parts after being carved.

I got lots of help from skilled Czech woodcarvers which was great because I never could have done it on my own.

After we carved the puppet parts we had to make the joints to put them together and make sure they could move properly. That was another challenging task. We used power tools to create the joints. Again you had to make really exact measurements.

Next was the painting and then the costuming. There was a wonderful fabrics and notions store not far from the workshop. I could have spent hours there but there was no time for that. I showed the salesperson my drawing for the jester and she helped me choose fabrics and notions for the costume. Had to have all those little bells.

We had professional marionette costumers assist us with the costuming as well.

And here is the jester all finished.

Here are some of the other marionettes that were built for the performance.

We did have some time on the weekends to hang out and participate in one of the Czech peoples’ favorite pastimes – drinking “pivo”. Beer!

We took the subway to get to the tavern. It was shiny new and very efficient.

When we were finished making our marionettes we spent two weeks rehearsing “Sleeping Beauty” and then we performed for a week at a park that had a big arts festival.

We didn’t have much time for sightseeing during the workshop but we took a few “field trips”, one to a puppet museum. The Czech people have a long history and tradition of marionettes.

After our last performance I had a week left in Prague to do some sightseeing but I’ll show you those photos another time. The workshop was a wonderful experience for me and Prague is a beautiful, magical city. I hope to go back some day.