In June of this year I was invited to teach a workshop on puppet making to a couple groups of Art Teachers for the Middle Tennessee Art Education Association Summer Conference at Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art. The workshop was titled: From Tichenor to Treehouses: Artists Who Bring Stories to Life. I was asked to teach the process of puppet making in the style of Tom Tichenor. In case you are unfamiliar with Tom Tichenor, here's a brief summary. Mr. Tichenor started his career in the late 1930's at the Nashville Public library. He later moved to New York and while there created the puppets for the original production of Carnival! on Broadway. He later returned to Nashville and continued his work at the library where he stayed until retiring in 1988. After retirement he continued crafting small houses out of felt and cardboard until he died in 1992.

Honestly I didn't know much about Tichenor before being invited to teach this workshop so I quickly went to work researching his life and his puppets. Morgan Matens with Wishing Chair Productions, who was teaching a workshop on making Tichenor style houses at the same workshop, graciously agreed to give me a peek at the puppets that are housed at the library. Below are some of the photos I took while there. I love the way they are stored. The placement of puppets from one show next to those from another makes me think of what might go on when no one is around.

This owl is what the workshop puppet was based on. I created some patterns based on a hand puppet version. It was refreshing to see what everyone created. I work in a professional environment where all of the features of puppets and the methods are based on directions and measurements and we're very strict with those directions. With this workshop I was able to give everyone the freedom to create puppets however they wanted. The results were fantastic. It was such a great experience. Special thanks to Andrea Steele at The Frist and Karen Kwarciak at Cheekwood for this great opportunity.