Oxun Diosa de Amor

As you know I have been a Future Leaders Visual Arts facilitator since 2015.

 

 

 

What does this mean?

 

I get to inspire young people to take lead of their lives and a career in the arts by sharing my creative practice and knowledge, largely through hands on practice and experimentation taking place over the course of a year long programme.

 

Pretty cool I think.

 

 

I have always been happy to share what I have learnt,  including an honest recollection of the pitfalls and successes of making, my thought processes and decisions as to which method, my highly analytical observations of various practices and so on.

I have after all been very lucky to have worked with and assisted many incredible experts in their trade, in my eyes the best, who have left significant impact on my life, be it personal development, a skill, a thought, a push in the right direction.

I am continually learning.

 

 

Years and years ago, when I met Ali Pretty and Murphy Winters in Ryde Carnival, they saw something in me that made them trust me enough (with their guidance) to take on a rather large job- The sculpting of the two giant African Puppet heads. I had never sculpted much more than carved a tiny piece of stone fitting into the palm of my hand.

An opportunity not to be missed I took on the challenge and delved into the depths of clay and papier mache.

I took a long time to sculpt these heads, but the setting was idyllic. Residents at the OXO tower in London, a huge chunk of the building hosting Kinetika and the newly formed Kinetika Bloco’s summerchool and making for Thames Festival 2001- definitely one of my favourite festivals of all time.

 

Murphy and I had the whole downstairs set up for giant puppet making. Pete from the IOW was also assisting on the structural build of the two puppets.

There was a lot of cane and plywood being shaped and cut, and mention of bungee more than once. I had very little involvement with the structural build, but it was all happening around me, and I soaked it all up through my peripheral vision, which was sharp.

I took many notes, explored the magical portals of creative unknown.. the month long journey brewed in me sights I would never forget and relationships that would change me forever.

 

 

 

In 2002,  I got the phone call.

 

We would dress the same puppets we made last year, this time I would make the costume for it and work with Charles Edward Brooke students to make their headdresses. We were Oxun section.

I was very nervous. It was a huge undertaking for me and I really wasn’t ready.  I didn’t really have the skills in patterncutting, sewing etc. Or at least that’s what I thought, and so I believed it wasn’t good enough, to the detriment of my health and the costume!

I very nearly didn’t turn up to the gig.  The puppet would be naked!

I had spent a few weeks in London working on headdresses and the design, and then further worked on the costume at my home in Southampton. In a tiny shared living room. This puppet is 4m tall!

I battled and battled , and my partner encouraged me hugely. I made this costume, never happy with it, not really knowing how to make it. But I took it on event day to IOW, with 2 hours to spare before the gig and delivered!

 

Ali’s words ringing in my ears- Why didn’t you ask for help? we were all here..

 

 

After this year, I see the following years as that of an apprentice, starting back at the drawing board and slowly collecting skills, usually as if in a large cloth, many things slipping, untangible, unaccessible.

I spent many years making costumes for large puppets, Dress them and accessories. Strcuturally I might assist with joining bits of wire together and occasionally sculpting a bod or two. But the opportunity never presented itself to me to go solo!

 

 

Until…In 2016

I was given an opportunity to brave my first puppet. From a conversation with Emily Wood over a cup of tea while rolling our eyes at something not quite fitting and having to fix it in less than record time- the late Constance was borne. With help from Tony Mason who provided me with a backpack and a basic puppet skeleton, I proceeded to sculpt this otherworldy creature with a combination of sprung steel, aluminium and fabric- a method I had seen and been part of building during my time at Kinetika.

She was beautiful. And a lot of work.

 

After she, came Oxumare, who I sculpted in the same way AND built the structure for. I somehow also managed to make a robot in a week? and then came Padmini and Sivaji, both now gravitating away from the full sprung steel effect and enjoying the perks of 3d foam pattern cutting and Fiberglass sculpting with my new found passion for fiberglassing thanks to Andrew Sinclair.

Still working on the costume and the painting but now focusing on the structure and passing on the costume to others, I found myself a few tricks that were mine. I gravitated out of necessity to find my own way, having tried all the avenues taught to me by Murphy and Tony . Being alone while working is a very interesting place to discover yourself.

 

I ended up making a few puppets in record time and always overwhelmed by the amount of work! It was not unusual to attempt a full one at Future Leaders and we always ended up overworked and possibly even the budget going over. That said I think everyone always had a good time- so something was definitely working.

 

 

 

 

Last year, 2021

I got a call from Holly. the magical words: “we’d love it if you can make a puppet with FLs and it doesn’t have to be finished that week!”

There was a shift.

I was really busy, and there was very little prep time. Almost none at all. I knew what had and handn’t worked in previous Future leaders puppet builds and now was a time to put it into practice.

I knew we were making Oxun.
I knew I wanted to go back to basics and work with easier materials.
And I knew I wanted everyone to have a say and use FL for what it was- a time to learn and play and see a process from beginning to end.

So I decided I would  turn up with materials. And a very rough plan of height and how to construct her.  I would return to Murphys horizontal plywood planes and sculpt my body from 2d inserts.

 

I picked up some centre cane from Bristol on my way up, and while I was chatting to the vendor I noticed some plywood cut outs with holes in. I asked him what they were for, and he said he was prototyping a method to send people easy to build packs for basket weaving.

 

That night I dreamt I’d drilled the holes into the horizontal planes and threaded the cane through it. This would be the case for all body panels. That would mean all  people could have a body part to work on and could work in pairs. and the binding would be simple with a little thread and some knot work!

Result

Design Day 1

Tech Drawing, Learning to use sewing machne, drills and jigsaws day 2!

Team split into structural and costume- develop templates  cut and sculpt/ knots and varnish. Sew underskirt/ overskirt/ belt and headpiece

 

 

 

 

This beauty appeared and inspired my next puppet Lady Dart  (pictured below at Thameside Winter Carnival) and both makes inspired the rainbow spirit who was  made by Rowan Taylor using the same templates as Oxun,  to embark on her first solo puppet!

What an achievement in 20 years! Hard work, love and dedication. Thank you to those who have helped, and a rememberance for those who are no longer with us who we can only thank with our hearts.

This is truly life enriching.

 

A world with more puppets is a fine world indeed <3