Week 1 • Week 2 • Week 3 • Week 4 • Week 5

Located in Los Angeles’ Highland Park, Bob Baker Marionette Theater, a gem within the world of performing arts, can be found. Started by Bob Baker and Alan Wood in 1964, this Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument works to preserve puppetry and educate audiences in its artistry and innovation. Through this unique medium, Bob Baker Marionette aims to bring a message of joy to all its viewers both young and old. 

This summer, both the stage manager Daisy Hernandez (center) and puppet maker Karina De La Cruz (right) of Bob Baker's Marionettes will be bringing their talents in puppetry to HOLA Visual Arts to share with our students. In the next four months, our students will learn to express the complex rainbow of emotions through their own personal hand-made puppets guided by our two esteemed artists. 

Read more about Bob Baker Marionettes: https://www.bobbakermarionettetheater.com/

Read more about the Berman Public Art Residency here: https://www.heartofla.org/blog-1/tag/The+Berman+Residency

Week 1

VISUALIZING EMOTIONS

On June 28, Bob Baker Marionettes’ representative artists were brought into HOLA to meet our students and introduce marionette puppeteering for the first time! As professional puppet makers, Daisy Hernandez and Karina De La Cruz were enthusiastic to share this unique craft. With the students, they discussed the residency’s vision for each student to create their very own marionette puppet through which they can channel their emotions and creativity. 

As an exercise, students were encouraged to work together in order to visualize complex emotions through shape and color. This worked as a warmup toward marionette character designing, in which a character’s personality and emotions are expressed through shapes and colors of costuming. This collaborative experience proved both challenging and engaging as students were encouraged to embody fury, confidence, exhaustion, terror, and relaxation through their collective work.

Our first week with Bob Baker Marionettes was a wonderful experience, and we cannot wait for next week in which students officially begin building their marionettes!

Week 2

CHARACTER DESIGNS

The first step on our road to creating puppets is character designing! As such, Bob Baker invited guest artists Hannah Watanabe-Rocco to discuss the process of creating their own character from scratch. Everyone had to first fill out a character sheet asking about the character’s name, species, likes, dislikes, etc. Students were then challenged to draw three characters based on their character sheet, only spending fifteen minutes on each character. They were encouraged by our artists to make alterations with each iteration. Such alterations ranged from small changes like adding a hat or big changes where the character was completely different! 

After completing three character sketches, our students were asked to choose a version of their character they were willing to commit to and draw a detailed, colored character illustration incorporating its personality and background. Everyone’s character looked absolutely unique due to the freedom students had in expressing any emotion and style they wished. Next week, we will begin to build our puppets, gradually bring these colorful 2D characters to life!

Week 3

Making the Base

In this third week with Bob Baker Marionettes, artists Daisy, Karina, and Hannah introduced students to the second step of marionette making — the base! Everyone began crafting the heads of their puppets with tinfoil and clay. For several hours, the students were hard at work, molding every nook and corner of the face. These details included eye sockets, bird beaks, snouts, etc. Once students were satisfied with their head sculpture, it was placed into a toaster oven to harden. 

Due to the intensive process of sculpting, this session was extended two extra hours so the students could work at their own pace with a pizza party included! Step by step, each character was coming to life, and we cannot wait to see next week where costuming and painting will continue to do so exponentially

Week 4

Costuming!

With their clay bases molded and baked, the students were finally ready to bring in the personality of their characters through makeup, hair, and costuming! 

With paint, students were able to bring in details to the face of their puppets. With yarn, students were able to create miniature custom wigs for their puppets. Lastly, with cloth, students were able to create clothes for their puppets. The pairs of pants, shirts, and dresses were able to be made due to Bob Baker’s wonderful guest seamstress. As children continued to work on hair and makeup, she would sew up their desired articles of clothing. Once completed, the students were able to decorate the base cloth with paint, felt, and stickers to perfectly match their initial custom designs.

Once completed, artists Daisy and Karina will be returning to Bob Baker Marionette Theater with everyone’s puppet to fully assemble them. After which, students with be able to truly bring their puppets to life with movement!

Week 5

It's Showtime!

In this last week with Bob Bakers, Daisy and Karina fully assembled all of the puppets over the week so that our students could use movement to fully bring their puppets to life! After a mere hour of practice getting used to the marionette controller, we headed off to Bob Baker Marionette Theater to prepare the showcase. After one rehearsal, HOLA Visual Art Department’s entire student body along with their families filled the seats, eagerly watching the stage. 

Daisy and Karina opened the show not only as hosts but performers, displaying their skills as puppeteers. After warming up the crowd, HOLA’s students came out on stage to show off their very own marionettes in a little catwalk to a song of their choice. The crowd went wild as each student came out to showcase their unique creative creations. After the amazing show, we closed it out the only way we could — with pizza and ice cream.