Happy World Puppetry Day 2025

 As you well know, I like puppets, perform with puppets, build puppets, and sell puppets.

 

Puppets have been with me my entire life. I don’t remember a time that I didn’t have puppets in my life. I have gone from a connoisseur of the form to full puppeteer in my life.

 

I see puppets as an art form. And there are a lot of forms to look at.

 

The basics are shadow, hand, rod, string, and body puppets. Other forms are combination of these like hand and rod or string and rod.

 

I had the very good luck to work in the museum at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta Georgia. Pop by if you haven’t. There is a Jim Henson wing that rotates puppets in and out of their vast collection. Also, they have an extensive puppet collection from all over the world. I learned a lot about the history of puppetry and the different forms of puppetry during my time there.

 

I have met many puppeteers over the years. I have learned a lot from them about building and operating puppets. I took a master class with John Tartaglia on operating puppets for film and television. I have taken doll making classes from Wendy Froud with Toby and Brian. 

 

I have taught basic puppetry to quite a few people. That is sort of my superpower, I can teach the basics of hand and rod puppetry in under an hour. 

 

I continue to learn and teach puppetry. One of my favorite panels I do all year is usually Monday at 10am at DragonCon entitled “So you want to build a puppet.” People come in with their ideas and we give them direction on how to create the puppets in their heads. They will bring in the puppets so we can see what they did. That I helped spark that puppet makes me very happy. We have repeat customers who show up every year.

 

Puppetry to me is like breathing. It is such a part of me.

 

I have made friends through puppets. I have had some real adventures through my puppets. I have given puppets to people I want to say thank you to and from that some friendships were formed. I know there are people I can go talk to because of the puppets. 

 

I have gotten recognized because of my puppets even without a puppet on my arm. They will usually tell me what their favorite of my puppets and why. I’ll talk puppetry with anyone who wants to. 

 

My name is Kathleen O David and I am a puppeteer

 

I am grateful for all the puppeteers in my life.