Career Development Grant
Career Development Grant
Twin Cities Barebones Halloween/Duluth All Souls Night giant puppet skeleton body.
Janeen Carey: vocalist, retired Hibbing Community College librarian and information media specialist; Adam Guggemos: graphic designer, art events promoter; Michelle Ronning: jewelry designer and maker; Tara Makinen: Executive Director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Moira Villiard: visual artist; Jeanne Doty: Retired Associate Professor of Music at University of Minnesota-Duluth, pianist; Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Margaret Holmes: visual artist, poet, former Children's Theatre employee; Tammy Mattonen: visual artist, co-founder of Crescendo Youth Orchestra; Quentin Stille: student liaison, College Music Director at KUMD.
Tammy Mattonen: visual artist, co-founder of Crescendo Youth Orchestra; Paula Gudmundson: Professor of music at University of Minnesota-Duluth, flutist; Walt Raschick: music director at KUWS; Judy Budreau: writer and editor; Jeffrey Kalstrom: sculptor and printmaker, Professor of Fine Art at University of Minnesota-Duluth.
ACHF Arts Access ACHF Arts Education ACHF Cultural Heritage
My goal is to celebrate the tenth Duluth All Souls Night with a special attraction that celebrates its growing history. I want to add a full human skeleton body to the giant Death character I made for the very first in 2008. This endeavor will enlist the advice and support of Minneapolis based puppet production companies, Chris Lutter of Puppet Farm (puppetfarm.org) and Barebones Puppets (barebonespuppets.org). The 12' tall remodeled entity will be completed and rehearsed in time for five Halloween events in the Twin Cities and then Duluth All Souls Night on November 4, 2017. A skull and hands have served temporarily with a single puppeteer masked simply with a black robe eight years. I always intended a full skeleton but could not afford necessary time, materials and human power to make it happen. The process will expand my art/design, puppeteering, and community organizing skills and provide much publicity for myself as an artist and the event I founded and nurtured in Duluth. My evaluation will be in the form of constant peer review with the giant puppet community in Minneapolis throughout the process and performance of the giant skeleton. Show audiences of the Twin Cities extravaganza and Duluth celebration will also be a valuable source of immediate feedback. The entity will be photo documented and posted on social media as it undergoes its transformation, extending its fan base and discussion nationally and possibly around the world.
Successfully: Completed with Christopher Lutter a scale skeleton puppet body for my giant papier-mache skull and hands. With a team of four puppeteers of Barebones Puppets this 17' tall character can lay down, crawl and sit on the ground. Rigged as a huge marionette it can stand and dance. Displayed in-progress remodeled puppet at three October receptions for The Wastelands at Philadelphia Farm in Osceola, WI resident artists Open Flame Theatre (OPT fka Children of the Wild), named this skeleton Virgil Maximus (V. Max) after their poet guide character. Completed/rehearsed in time for three Halloween shows in the Twin Cities and Duluth All Souls Night (DASN) on November 4, 2017. Manipulated V. Max with a sophisticated apparatus hanging from a tree in the Halloween Extravaganza at Hidden Falls Regional Park in St Paul, and from a support beam in the Duluth Depot Great Hall for DASN. Celebrated tenth DASN by finally adding a full human skeleton body to the popular giant Death mascot of nine events, a black cloaked skull and hands that I made for the very first event in 2008. Performed V.Max with Walken Schweigert, musician/actor/director of OFT, as part of DASN evening on Nov. 4th, 2017. Featured display at pop-up disco and more at Ivy Building for the Arts, Minneapolis. Expanded my art/design/puppeteering/community organizing skills and provided publicity for myself, Chris Lutter, Barebones Puppets, Open Flame Theatre, all future DASN events.
Other, local or private