 |
| Exhibit Developer Jessica Neuwirth installs the new case. |
“The idea for the new marionettes case display came from the Inkheart Trilogy, where characters can be read out of the story into real life. Leigh and I liked the idea of a library scene with mischievous animals escaping from a book. We choose the puppets based on their appearance and how they might engage in playful, unlibrary-like behavior. The monkey was a given, the camel worked well with the open desert scene, the spotted pony added fun color and pattern, and so on and so forth.
As for the bookshelf background, Leigh wanted to do a painting and we thought it would be fun to integrate real books. She also added in a sleeping kitty because she loves cats. The additional toys strewn about the books help set up the scene where the animals climb up the shelves, play Chinese Checkers and just make a mess.
The process of hanging the marionettes was very intricate and time-consuming. The puppets have very long strings that get easily tangled and must be handled carefully with gloves. It took a good deal of communication between who was hanging the string and who was holding the puppet in place to make the necessary adjustments.”
 |
| Credit: Salley Mavor |
“I have had a life-long fascination with little things and needlework and rediscovered my childhood delight in sewing and creating miniature scenes while studying illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design. Manipulating materials in my hands with a needle and thread was so much more satisfying than rendering with a pencil or brush. I found that I could communicate my ideas more clearly and that my hands would direct me in a compelling way... I create narrative scenes in relief, much like miniature, shallow stage sets, with figures imposed on embellished fabric backgrounds. My work is decorative and detailed, full of patterns from nature and found objects, all stitched by hand with a needle and thread.”
 |
| Credit: Salley Mavor |
 |
| Graphic designer Valerie Haggerty-Silva installing the display. |
“We wanted to do something that would appeal to visitors and be fun for both kids and grown-ups and the idea of Rhode Island emerged.
The hardest part was figuring out what scenes they would be. We generated a list of ideas, then divided them up, drew sketches and gathered materials that would make good miniatures – though we didn’t always know what they were looking for!
Once we began assembling the scenes, it became clear what was needed and how to use materials – the process prompted me to look at materials in new ways and wonder, what could it be?
I’m curious to know which boxes will be visitor favorites. I hope they say, “Remember when we went there?” or “We should go there!” – that the boxes are a real conversation starter.”
 |
| Mary's favorite scenes include the Rustic Drive-In, Del's Lemonade truck and Point Judith Lighthouse. |
 |
| Savannah and Lucia's work in progress |
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?
We threw around a lot of different ideas before Bridget came up with having a large kitchen on top and a smaller kitchen underneath the floorboards so it’s kind of a play on scale. If you look at the top, it mirrors the characters and objects below. You can imagine it goes from big to small to smallest and that if you could look under the mouse house, maybe there’s a flea or cockroach kitchen!Bridget added, "I really liked that we were able to incorporate the idea of spatial thinking into the case with different perspectives and the scale of the two kitchens – and that it was an exercise in spatial thinking for me to create the components in the scene!"
We went through the collections and decided what puppets and characters and other collections items we were going to use. I really loved the old toys and wanted to incorporate them in the display, either as toys or by transforming them into something else. That’s where my inspiration came – for the things we didn’t have, what were we going to create and how?
I made the couch from a lot of recycled materials, like old jewelry boxes, fabric, crayons, corks, buttons – materials you can imagine that a mouse might use to make its own couch. The stove is a metal cup with belt buckles for the burners and the whole frame is a potato masher. If you keep looking, you can really see the props and the details and what they’re made of. I hope kids are inspired to think, “I can make that” from materials they have at home!
 |
| Robbie masquerades as a marionette. |
 |
| Robbie's hands-on exploration of art materials in Discovery Studio. |
I started coming up with concepts and sketches for the case in February – I was missing the warm weather and a lot of my ideas were about spending time outdoors! The more I sketched, the more I found myself thinking about poems, stories and children's books illustrations, specifically “The Giving Tree,” “Where the Wild Things Are” and the ee cummings poem “who knows if the moon's a balloon.”
I liked the simplicity, nostalgia and imagination of these stories and wanted to create a backyard scene that would capture that. I enjoyed working with materials kids might use in art class or at home – newspaper for the tree, paper scraps and thread for the leaves, masking tape and tubes for the tire swing, pom-poms, beads and pipe-cleaners. I also incorporated furniture and characters from the Museum’s collection of antique toys – it was really interesting to see all of the things kids used to play with and how different they are from our modern-day plastic toys.
The case was definitely a collaborative effort among the AmeriCorps members – Dylan cut hundreds of leaves, Francesca became a certified origami fashion designer and Megan lent a hand doing the tedious job of leaf-hanging.
  |
| Day. And night. |
 |
| Sketch including bear and monkey plus wolf on washboard and skunk on spoons. |
“When we looked at the marionette collection, we wondered where these guys could go that they haven’t already gone. What is some place that is mysterious and cool that could bring these characters together? The moon!Join the puppets on their journey next time you’re at the Museum. Click here to learn about our previous marionette displays.
We wanted to stay true to the time period [when Betty created the marionettes] and had two different inspirations drawn from the same era that led us to the moon. Andy was inspired by the early silent film “A Voyage to the Moon” by George Méliès. Suzie was inspired by Salvador Dali's surrealist landscapes and also by the film “The Blood of a Poet” by Jean Cocteau. We liked the romance of the moon before people had actually gone to it, the loneliness and mystery associated with it, and its openness to different interpretations as a symbol of many human things.
At first we wanted it all to be on the moon, but then a journey was more exciting. We built a moon, then the Earth. A spotted dog, a butterfly, and a boy on a homemade rocket go to the moon. A painter stays on Earth and paints the moon. A green man, Humpty Dumpty, and a smiling ghost are already there.
We wanted to put in things that weren’t 100% explainable so people would have to admit that they don’t know everything. So we put in a hanging key and also a prehistoric horse that looks like a dinosaur robot. The key can mean different things to different people."
