Ship of Fools

Ship of Fools was the title of a joint exhibition held in the Yellow Door Gallery, Dumfries, 1st - 18th November 2017

 These are a few images and video's of work I exhibited.

The exhibition was originally to have been a joint retrospective with two other local artists, but as one had to drop out and four others were invited to participate, the exhibition took on a nautical theme inspired by it's title. Almost every thing was therefor made in a panic a few weeks before the exhibition started. Nearly all the old work I had intended to display was no longer relevant.

  A few carved fish

 

    I have recently enjoyed working with copper and gold leaf.

     The automaton in the foreground is entitled 'Walking on Water'

Triple janus head - with seaweed hair

 This is the sea sickness machine - an automaton entitled 'Seven Seas'

Hopefully the retrospective exhibition will be held in spring 2018

Dancing Boots Automatons

 I have finally got to complete some of my automatons - these are not my first attempts but the original ones are so complicated that they will remain "work in progress" for a long time to come as I find solutions to the various difficulties. An exciting but time consuming challenge. The inspiration for the original automaton came from a Christmas decoration, so hopefully I will complete it by next Christmas
    

                               "Dancing Boots" automaton VI

 This series of automatons derived from the idea to make bits of marionettes as ornaments - I didn't want to make puppets at a lower price range as the quality would have to drop accordingly.
 (I think I have come up with a solution for this now, but will have to experiment a bit to find the right compromise.)


                                "Old Boots"

 Old Boots appear in black, brown and natural wood (if the grain is interesting enough) There are also a couple of pairs strung up with basic marionette controls


                                         " Dancing Boots" automaton I

              This is a very badly taken video holding the camera in one hand and turning the handle with the other

I have now designed several more exciting variations, with more than one pair dancing together, and have started work on the components for the mechanisms. These will be 'one off' constructions and I will post those as I complete them 

Mr Skeleton

I was learning to dance for a long, long time - and there is still room for improvement.

 (unfortunately there may be adverts accompanying this video, but this was 'the price to pay' to in order to use the music (because of the YouTube copyright/royalties))

                                                  Music:      Eclat de la Rose,  Massilia Sound System,  3698 CR 13 

 Having originally designed this marionette to divide into three separable parts, I decided it was necessary to join head and the hips, otherwise they had a tendency to dance off in their own directions at unexpected moments.

These are the latest photo's of my almost finished Dial O'Crock - I found some fantastic fabric to make him a stomach

I finally sent off these three images to Clive Hicks-Jenkins' Puppet Challenge. I am not yet happy with the photo's so I'll change them when I manage to take better ones. So far I have spent two or three days taking photo's that just don't do justice to the troll.

 

I made a last minute change to the mouth, which delayed the video, but he didn't look right with a mouth that didn't open.

 

Although the mouth mechanism was very time consuming I am very glad I took the risk - I am very pleased with the final result.

I realised a few days ago why it was that I did not feel the representation of the troll in the Ladybird book lived up to my idea of what a troll should be like. I realised that if the red nose was just a little bit smaller and the hair was taken away from the top of the head, then it looked just like my grandfather. Although I was very young when my grandfather passed away I loved him very much and often think of him in happy childhood memories.


This is the unedited video I made with the help of the family - technical difficulties and lack of time has delayed the final cut, but I hope to post it soon. It is well worth watching

So I am back where I started from - but I've finished !!!

Just needing a little dirt to smudge under the nails

This weekend I will re-string him and  take photographs and the really short video

This is my test video - since this was filmed the Troll went through drastic changes to try and achieve the desired appearance and movement to my satisfaction. I am therefore running a little behind schedule and the final video performance will probably be a short demonstration of the marionette rather than a full production of the Three Billy Goats Gruff