At the Circus

There’s a whole lot of clowning around in a charming new display created by AmeriCorps Museum Educators Amanda Howard and Jack Read.  See clowns juggling, balancing and swinging in a silly circus scene showcasing the Museum’s collection of historic Betty Huestis marionettes.

Amanda and Jack shared some thoughts about their inspiration and process:

Amanda: We saw that there was an abundance of clowns and that no one had used them in a while.  So we thought, what about a circus?

Jack: I have some background in stage clowning, so I thought it was such a neat theme. 

Amanda: We wanted it to be more about the marionettes than our own designs.  Once we chose the clowns we were going to use, we came up with ideas of what they could be doing.  We wanted someone getting a pie in the face and thought that having the clown on skates juggling would be funny.  And Uncle Sam is the ringmaster.

Jack: As first, we were going to have so much stuff – we thought we should spend more time in ThinkSpace to develop our spatial thinking muscles!  We learned to scale it back and be okay with simplicity.

Amanda: I really think the case captures both of our personalities.

This circus is in town through the end of the year, so be sure to check out the clowns’ playful antics!