This Christmas season, Thistledown Puppets will be designing, building, and performing four puppets for a new musical entitled “Give!” written and directed by our good friend Alex (A.D.) Lucas. The show will be performed here locally in Roanoke–in the same venue where Bull: A Puppet Musical (also written by Mr. Lucas) was staged a couple of years ago. Give! is currently in pre-production, and after a couple of readings of the play, I can tell you that I am really excited to be a part of it.

If you have plans to be in southwest Virginia this Christmas season, you won’t want to miss it. For more information on the show, visit the website or the blog.

Stay tuned for puppet designs and images…

Last Friday, my little man Titus came into the world. I can’t wait until he can build puppets with Daddy.

At least once a week as I’m building puppets in my workshop, I come across some doodle or painting that I’ve done over the years (like the one above that I did on our honeymoon in Ireland) and I always think…”Wow—I forgot all about that!”…and nobody sees it but me. Maybe that’s a good thing, but when you create something you at least want SOMEONE to see it…besides your wife.

Puppets are my art now…and I put everything I’ve learned over the years into designing and performing them. So I’ve created a new blog as a place for me to show some of the artistic journey that I’ve taken over the years. So for anyone who’s interested, I’ve dusted off a bunch of images and will try to update it as often as Thistledown will allow.

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas. We’re looking forward to a wonderful 2010!

Sometimes even the puppets want to go out and play…

Here is a link to some photos from yesterday’s preschool puppet demo.