‘How It Felt’ – Puppets Talk Mental Health

Deborah Chapman or ‘Big Debz’ spoke with Puppet Place’s Martha King to discuss her Dundee based company ‘How It Felt’ and why she uses puppetry to discuss issues surrounding mental health through workshops and online content.

Hi Deborah, could you tell us a little bit about ‘How It Felt’ and what you do? 

Hello Puppet Place! My name is Deborah Chapman or Big Debz and together with my fuzzy friend Little Debz, we are ‘How It Felt’.

Photo by Y Photography

‘How It Felt’ provides supervised and interactive puppet building, drama and filmmaking workshops with an emphasis on mental health and emotional well being.  At the workshops children, adolescents, adults and staff can make puppets of themselves (or any character they want) and learn to operate and puppeteer through them.

This involves drama, games, team building exercises, empathy, communication, expression and understanding their relationships with others and themselves through puppetry activities. Then we look at how to use these tools to break down the barriers surrounding the stigma of mental health and help the individual with their own personal issues or anything they wish.  Other options can include creating a short scene/film about an issue that is important to them.  We’re also happy to adapt the themes of our workshops to the organisations and groups we work with.

At the end of the workshop the participants can keep their puppets and, if made, copies of films they have worked on. The final product is usually a finished puppet and a finished film, created by the participants. Our hope is that the experience can be educational and fun with clients going away with a new found sense of creative and emotional confidence.  This allows them to express themselves in a safe space and to understand themselves and others better with added fun!  Our services have also grown into doing more one-to-one and in depth sessions with clients, sensory storytelling, commissions, films, collaborations, events and educational talks with ‘Little Debz’.

How did you discover puppetry and what was it about this art form that made you want to use it in this way? 

I think puppets have always been around and influenced me but I didn’t understand the complexity and beauty of them until was I older.  Growing up in the late 80s and 90s, I was very fortunate to be exposed to British children’s shows and films, which had a huge variety of types of puppets.  Examples were things like Button Moon, The Clangers, Bagpuss, The Herbs, Tots TV, Watch with Mother, etc. I also grew up watching a lot of animation and puppet films, and also how puppetry was being used with groundbreaking effects in the film industry.  Of course Jim Henson, Tim Burton, Jurassic Park, Wallace and Gromit etc.  I remember getting an Aardman stop motion animation kit for Christmas and learning how to make models with wires in them for the first time.  I would watch the shows and films on repeat, and would always watch the behind the scenes of the whole process.

My love for the art form has never died and anytime there are puppets on television, the big screen, theatre, or performers in the street, I can’t help but be engaged and fascinated. During university I was lucky to go see a production of ‘War Horse’ and the experienced moved me in a way that made me realise that maybe I could be a puppet maker and puppeteer.

While pursuing a degree in the arts, me and my friend at the time ended up creating puppets that look like ourselves, which then lead to the creation of ‘How It Felt’.  This led to our short dubbed puppet films that were based on real conversations we had about our own mental health struggles. Then eventually our first funded puppet project working with young people and their families ‘How do you see ADHD?’ film.

During the process of ‘How It felt’ we have found that people don’t judge puppets as much as we judge each other. Puppets can get away with expressing and saying quite powerful subjects, even if the subjects are serious.  Mental health doesn’t discriminate but people do.  Our puppets don’t judge anyone and people want to engage with them and hear them out.  We have found the art form is powerful in being used as a tool to say what is important to them and we want to make it accessible. It has been giving people voices and has allowed them to feel like they are being seen.  Everyone deserves that.

How It Felt puppet making workshop

What have you been doing over lockdown to keep bringing us content from ‘How It Felt’ in this unusual time?

It was difficult adapting our workshops to move online to begin with.  We usually do group workshops in person as I feel it’s really important in the creative process to be present and make connections with someone during the experience.  But I think I’m quite fortunate to be part of a generation where being self-employed means doing a lot of work online, especially through social media and film.

Over lockdown we have been providing crafting and puppet making workshops remotely over platforms such as Zoom. We understand that it has been harder for people to go outside and go to shops, so we have adapted our puppet building to materials you would find around the home – such as old boxes, packaging, and spare office and art materials you may have laying around.  It still has the elements of group connection and also some of the sensory tools you would have using your hands, with the same guidance and support. This has involved collaborating with local organisations and charities with themes to the workshops.

Dragon Egg Boxes with ‘Befriends’

My puppet ‘Little Debz’ has been interacting with everyone online. She’s quite well known in our community. She’s been answering the Q&As people have been sending in and also doing small interactions.  She has also been writing postcards and sending them out to people who may be feeling lonely during this time or might know someone who would appreciate it.

We have also been creating free online puppet making tutorials ‘Fuzzy Finger Crafts’ for viewers to have a try and enjoy at their own pace at home. Some of our videos have also been addressing mental health education and support with our own puppets ‘Fuzzy Thoughts and Feelings’ as we love integrating creativity and mental health together with this art form.

We also have a ‘Fuzzy Friends Adventures Group’ Facebook community page, which is a safe space for people who like puppetry or have been to our workshops and who want to connect and share.  We’ve been posting behind the scenes content, activities, giveaways, news and updates before anyone else gets to see it. ‘Little Debz’ has been doing streams and interactions with everyone and sharing her adventures. You can check this out here.

Finally, we’ve had time to make a website, which we’re quite excited but also nervous about launching. It’s been really positive to have the extra time to grow as a creative but also as a human during this time.  You can have a look at the new site by going to howitfelt.org

What do you think might be next for ‘How It Felt’? Have you got any plans for the future?

We will be turning six years old this November and we have made over 300 puppets with our workshops and collaborators.  As for the future, we now know we can work remotely with our workshops and support content online.  We’re hoping to expand our mental health education videos and also interview more people in our communities and make puppet films with them. We also love collaborating and were hoping to connect and work with more puppeteers and puppet builders working in different fields such as theatre.

Puppet Building Workshop with ‘Mix It Up Theatre’

We’re in the planning stages of setting up a creative hub for our local community and would love to invite puppeteers and performers to be involved.  We’re always learning and training within the art form and my mental health training has been growing as well as learning how we can combine the two together.  We would also love to create a puppet club for others who want to try out the art form and make films/productions. These are our long term goals, but continuing to let the art form be accessible and give people the tools to be seen and listened to is our main focus.

We’re open to collaborations and continuing to do our workshops remotely along with talks if anyone would like to get in touch. We are also accepting donations on our website to keep ‘How It Felt’ going.

Interview by Martha King

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You can donate or find out more information about ‘How It Felt’ by going to their website or by checking out their YouTube Channel.

Or you can join them on their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.

Beverley Puppet Festival Comes to Your House

Beverley Puppet Festival is one of the UK’s largest celebrations of puppetry in all forms. This year however, due to the extraordinary times we find ourselves in, we are experiencing this festival in an entirely new way. Puppet Place’s Martha King spoke with Co-Artistic director, Kerrin Tatman, to find out more about the events still in store for us and how to access them.

 

Hi Kerrin, would you be able to tell us a bit about Beverley Puppet Festival? What would we usually expect from this event?

Every two years, the award-winning Beverley Puppet Festival attracts 13,000 people to the quiet East Yorkshire town for a weekend of performances, workshops, free outdoor theatre and much, much more. Giant creatures roam around the Beverley’s town centre streets; tiny, magical worlds are revealed to unsuspecting audiences in the Friary Gardens and many indoor shows for all ages including adults take place at various venues across the town, including at East Riding Theatre.

The festival has grown to be a much-anticipated event of family arts provision in the Yorkshire calendar but also as a meeting place for puppeteers from around the country and internationally. The Scratch Space offers a platform to puppeteers wanting to try out new ideas to get feedback from a critical audience – the five selected companies receive a festival pass and a small bursary so they can fully immerse themselves in the festival. Networking meetings through Puppeteers UK and Equity take place as well, allowing puppeteers to take part in sector conversations.

Our usual programme of around 30 events across one weekend caters for all ages and genres of puppetry, including some of the best adult puppetry shows from the UK and overseas. Previous visiting international companies include Close-Act, Sofie Krog, Magische Theatertje, TAM-TAM objectentheater, Zero en Conducta and Compagnie with Balls. We always try and make sure that there is something for everyone – from comedy to the avant-garde – and so that everyone can understand that puppetry is for them, no matter their age or interests.

Of course, due to our current situation, the Beverley Puppet Festival has been slightly different this year. How has it differed and how will you continue to bring us content from the event?

We made the decision early on in the coronavirus epidemic that we didn’t want to cancel. Cancelling would have meant the loss of income for the full team and programmed artists, plus our audiences would be in lockdown without their biennial dose of puppetry arts. Instead we decided the only way forward was to go online. All of our pre-programmed artists (apart from two companies) and a few new editions were re-commissioned to design, create and film 25 videos of puppetry-related activities that could be completed by audiences in their homes using simple materials. Three activity videos per week are being posted on our website until July 12th 2020. Activities range from shadow puppets, moving mouth puppets, illusions, rod puppets and even a step by step guide on how to create a toy theatre.

We will still be running the Scratch Space but instead the 5 selected companies will perform their work-in-progress pieces through live streaming on our Facebook account across 5 Fridays in June / July. We were able to open this opportunity up to international artists for the first time due to it taking place online and are thrilled to have puppeteers taking part from Puerto Rico, Italy, Greece, as well as two from the UK.

The third main output we are focusing on for 2020 is our Education Project, which saw festival Co-Artistic Director / Founder Anna Ingleby of Indigo Moon Theatre create shadow puppet theatre packs sent into Beverley care homes. Residents under the assistance of care workers can play and create shadow stories, with participation from family members on Zoom / Skype. With families not being able to visit residents during this time, we wanted to put together a project that would creatively draw families together through digital means.

All activities are free, however we ask audiences to consider making donations to our Go Fund Me page. The money raised will be split between the festival delivery costs and some of our usual partners who missed out due to the festival going online, such as East Riding Theatre, our caterers, marquee hire company and festival technical team.

 

What inspired the chosen theme ‘Back to Nature’?

Our festival theme of ‘Back to Nature’ was already in place before the transition to an online programme. We chose ‘Back to Nature’ to inspire people more about our natural surroundings and to raise awareness of the climate crisis. The theme feels more relevant than ever with what is happening in the world right now.

Originally we had planned for giant birds, tortoises and sea creatures to greet audiences on Beverley’s streets, but instead now all of the festival activities are linked to the theme in some way. Some activities teach people how to make animal puppets; others ask audiences to collect and use materials from their gardens, and one even shows people how to make a potato marionette monster! We hope that during these difficult times, the festival theme keeps nature and the environment at the forefront of people’s minds and if they are unable to get outside at the moment they are at least bringing a little bit of nature into their households through these activities.

 Will Beverley Puppet Festival go ahead in its usual format at a later date?

We have repurposed all of our secured funding to deliver the online version of the festival. For this reason, as well as team members being involved with Moving Parts: Newcastle Puppetry Festival on alternate years, the next live Beverley Puppet Festival will be the 10th edition in 2022.

Although the online festival is unchartered waters for our festival team, we have been looking at the change as an opportunity to develop the event for future years. For instance, we are still printing a brochure of the 25 activities on offer but rather than distributing these nationally and regionally as normal, we are focusing on our immediate geographical audience by sending them to every single household in the Beverley area and surrounding villages.

We’ve used the time to develop a festival app (available through Apple App Store and Google Play Store) so that people can access puppetry content easier and quicker, and we hope to repurpose the foundations of this app for future live festivals. We’ve explored new ways to improve our festival image and branding, such as commissioning artist Rachael Horner to design the front cover of our brochure rather than using a photograph. Rachael’s beautiful design is a real-life collage of a pop-up toy theatre which we hope will inspire audiences to get involved in the activities on offer. To help us deliver this online adventure we have also brought on a new team member Rachael Jones as a Digital Specialist to train the team up and help us reach as many people as possible.

Do you think the restrictions to our way of living due to Covid-19 could influence a new way to experience live puppetry in the future?

We have to keep positive and obviously the ideal will be that after this is all over live puppetry and other arts events can go back to normal as soon as possible. Although putting the festival online is an exciting adventure for us and our audiences, we will be thrilled to deliver the festival as normal again in 2022 – but maybe with some additional digital elements that we wouldn’t have thought of including before!

That being said, we will emerge after the Covid-19 crisis into a different world and no one knows what that will look like yet. Arts funding (in England and Wales at least) is currently in flux with necessary emergency grants being given but resulting in rolling Project Grants coming to a halt. This will affect puppetry and arts organisation in 2021, unless rolling Project Grants are reinstated very soon. For instance, unless Project Grants are reinstated by September 2020, Moving Parts: Newcastle Puppetry Festival will not be able to happen as planned in April 2021. Adaptation is key though and in the case of the latter we will push the festival back to October 2021. There is also concerns about people not buying lottery tickets in the current climate which may affect arts funding and more worrying, a potential ‘hangover’ after lockdown of audiences not wanting to attend live events for a lengthy period of time.

Puppetry, as with other art forms and lots of different industries, is having to adapt to the situation. It is brilliant seeing lots of puppeteers putting up activities and performances online around the UK and internationally. People are coming together more than ever before across social media and with puppetry being a primarily visual art form, puppetry will withstand the current challenging circumstances. But we must fight it together – watch puppeteer videos, share knowledge, look at festival programmes, support organisations and artists in need. We will get through it and puppetry will be stronger on the other side.

The festival is live NOW until 12 July and the full festival programme can be downloaded at www.beverleypuppetfestival.com  You can also follow the festival and find more information on their facebook page  @BeveryleyPuppetFestival  and their twitter account @Bevpuppetfest.

The Rat Affair – ‘Blurring The Lines Between Theatre and Gig’

RAT is a retelling of The Pied Piper of Hamelin through shadow puppetry and sounds influenced from Eastern Europe. We’re very excited that the rats have been let out of the bag and are currently bringing this highly accessible and invigorating experience to venues across the country. Developed and created by theatre maker / multi instrumentalist Louis King.

Puppet Place’s Martha King caught up with her brother Louis, along with puppeteer and visual designer Ailsa Dalling, to talk about the process behind RAT.

Photo by Steve Tanner

Hi Louis, can you tell us a bit about the show and why you chose this story?

Louis: RAT is a reimagining of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. We’re telling this story with shadow puppetry and live music, without the use of spoken word. As a musician I’ve always been interested in The Piper, and telling a story that features music at its heart was an exciting challenge to take on.

Some of the themes present in the story include responsibility, migration, deceit and political corruption. One of the first questions we asked ourselves when exploring the story was “who are the rats?” During our first week of development, the world was in the middle of an immigration crisis. You may remember Katie Hopkins described those arriving to European shores as “vermin” – this greatly influenced our thought process when making RAT. While immigration is still an unsolved problem in our world, times have moved on, and we now find ourselves surrounded by incredibly powerful politicians; the Mayor Character in our story is very much of this ilk.

And so by exploring the “rat” in our society, we have turned a children’s fable about paying one’s dues, into a current and relevant political allegory for our times.

Photo by John Freddy Jones

The music is very central in RAT. What influenced you musically and were there any changes made in terms of a traditional theatre experience due to the musicality in the piece?

Louis: When exploring the history of The Pied Piper and it’s origins, there are various theories about where the children were taken. The most prominent of these is that they were taken to Eastern Europe, in particular Poland and Romania. And so as a band we have been exploring Klezmer and traditional Jewish tunes. This style of music has informed much of the score written for RAT.

However, because of the instrumentation in The Rat Affair we were able to explore other genres such as soul and funk. And so the music is essentially a whirlwind of styles all mixed up together. It’s a weird pitch to have a folky number with accordion and violin followed by a full on soul track with electric piano and tenor sax, but it weirdly works very well!

Applying this to the story of The Pied Piper is a whole other beast. I wouldn’t say that we have changed the traditional theatre experience, but I would say that we are blurring the lines between theatre and gig. And arguably, rather than challenging theatre, we are most likely challenging the form of how live music is presented.

Photo By Sam J Burdall

Ailsa, what is your puppetry background and have you had to adapt your technique to fit with the storytelling in RAT?

Ailsa: I trained at the Curious School of Puppetry under Sarah Wright in 2016. Shadow Puppetry and projection were a module on the course, which I found very inspiring at the time. In particular, the teachings of Steve Tiplady and Liz Walker. Since then I have continued to experiment with those techniques and combined it with my background as an artist. For example, in RAT, I am using Lino-prints as part of the aesthetic and visual language of the show.

As a puppeteer in theatre the majority of my work is using rod and table top puppets, so it has been interesting developing RAT over the last two years as it’s all shadow puppetry. Although the same basic principles still apply, the puppets are all 2D and mostly made of paper, which in itself is a new skillset to work with.

This show is visually so important as there is no use of language. Can you tell us a bit about the decision behind this and the challenges you faced when telling the story through images?

Ailsa: The choice not to use language, spoken or written, was something that was decided very early on in the RAT development process. We wanted to make a show that was accessible for all audiences; the story of the Pied Piper crops up in many different cultures and is told all over the world. We hope that in our telling, in bringing together different styles from across Europe in both the music and visuals, we weave the current political climate into this story.

The challenge in not using words has meant that we have had to really develop the visual language within the show. It has surprised me how often I’ve been tempted to put words in but pushing past that I’ve found some of my favourite images. The music and sound design have to tell the emotional journey of the characters just as much as the visuals, which is more common in film. Sivert Christensen, our director, is a filmmaker which has been really interesting when it comes to deciding how we visually tell the story. We talk a lot in rehearsals about where the ‘camera’ is and how we as puppeteers can lead the audience’s eyes to what they need to see.

What’s next for The Rat Affair, have you any ideas for future projects?

Louis: We will tour RAT over the next month or so, and start thinking about a second bigger tour in 2021. The Rat Affair also perform as just a band and we will be playing a lot this Summer in venues and various festivals across the UK.

Moving forward I think the whole company will come together again at some point to make new work but at the moment it’s not entirely clear. There is talk of turning this show into a short film, using the artwork designed by Ailsa Dalling, so maybe that will be the next project?!

Photo by Sam J Burdall

Interview with Martha King

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RAT will be shown at The Loco Klub, Bristol, on the 8th March. Click here for tickets.

For other tour dates and information visit therataffair.com or @therataffair

Bringing Magic to The Wardrobe with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: An Interview with Tomasin Cuthbert from Soap Soup Theatre

For this adaptation of Goethe’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Soap Soup Theatre have joined forces with Open Attic Company to bring an abundance of enchantment, music and puppetry to The Wardrobe Theatre in Bristol this December.  Martha King talked with Soap Soup Theatre director, Tomasin Cuthbert, about their process behind the story and the magic that’s in store.

Illustrated and Designed by Tomasin Cuthbert

What inspired you to adapt Goethe’s best-loved poem from 1797? Were there any challenges in bringing it up to date? 

I am always looking for well known stories to make into shows. For a Christmas show, the main criteria is that they have a familiar name, but also have enough space in them to be really creative. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is perfect. There is very little plot in the original poem so we can have lots of fun putting our own slant on it.

The poem’s starts with ‘apprentice tries to do magic’, ‘magic is wonderful and exciting’ and then ‘magic gets out of control’, so there is plenty of room for us to make decisions about who the sorcerer and the apprentice are, where and when the story takes place and what the world looks like.

In our version the story takes inspiration from 80s classic kids movies like Back to the Future, The Goonies, and The Explorers. Stranger Things had a big influence on the style of this show, as we love the music and design. We went back to our childhoods and have created an homage to what it was like being a kid in the 80s, combined with a healthy dollop of magic, music, dancing and puppetry to make something really special for families this year.

You are collaborating with Open Attic Company for this show. What was the process like working together and what has each company brought to the production? 

The two companies bring different skills and experience to the table. Open Attic’s representatives for this show are Adam Fuller, our Director, who has also directed four of Soap Soup’s shows over the years. There is also Dean Sudron who is designing the lighting and Vic Hole who is Co-Producing alongside myself. Soap Soup make up the rest of the team, I am designing, performing and Co-Producing the show, and Chris Menes is composing the music and sound design.

The process is very much like making any other show, always a collaboration of many talented artists and theatre makers coming together to create a shared vision. The difference with a Co-Pro is that the companies have joint responsibility for the running of the project, so we can support each other when times get tough – as they always do during the intense process of making a show.

This show is all about magic. Have you found that using puppetry has helped with creating the impossible? 

Puppetry always does that! That’s why I love it so much! But this time we have also called upon the experience of Peter Clifford who has acted as Magic Consultant for the project, so we have some extra surprises in the show this time!

What is next for Soap Soup Theatre in the New Year? 

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice goes on tour alongside The Selfish Giant, (A Co-Production with Tessa Bide Productions) which is also out this Christmas at The Pound, in Corsham, from the 21st to 24th of December .

The Selfish Giant – Photo: Paul Blakemore

I am going on maternity leave for a few months while the shows tours, but when I get back to work, I already have some ideas for a new show – my brain never seems to sleep! This one will be science fiction inspired by the graphic novelist Moebius and exploring creating a positive story about the future of humanity, but set on another world. The working title is The Rainbow Witch, so keep your eyes peeled for announcements later on in 2020!

Interview with Martha King

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is on at The Wardrobe Theatre, Bristol, from the 19th to the 31st of December. Get your tickets here.

To find out more information about Soap Soup Theatre and their work, visit their website: soapsouptheatre.com or follow them on facebook, Instagram or twitter.

After Life Drawing: A *Very* Different Life Drawing Event

Resident artists Beki Wills and Catherine V Rock collaborate on a life drawing event called ‘After Life Drawing’ at Puppet Place with a deadly twist. We got together to find out a little more about their work.

Photo theme: Love

Would you both be able to tell me a little bit about the work your make on your own as artists?

Cat: I am a puppeteer, fabricator and performer. Most recently I have been working with Paper Cinema as a puppeteer on their production of Macbeth (they also do some exciting stuff with drawing and performance.)  When I’m not puppeteering, I’m at Puppet place making things.  I design and fabricate puppets, costumes, props and prosthetics.  I really enjoy having the diversity of creating and performing.

I currently work with Longleat Safari Park making roaming street characters for their seasonal events. I also cosplay and I am a regular at World Zombie Day, making a new zombie each year to terrify the general public of London.

Beki: I’m a multimedia visual artist. I’m currently exploring the uncertainty and fragile existence of modern society in the form of automatic expression and mark making through a series of drawings on various surfaces. You can see my current work at @convergence10 

I also teach life drawing to hen and stag parties and now have fulfilled a lifelong ambition … as a cocktail maker! This is where I really get to show my artistic flare.

Working for a youth theatre company for many many productions, I produced scenery and props.  ‘After Life’ was an amalgamation of what we’d done before, are currently doing and then fusing it all together… and that’s what you get when you come to one of our events.

Catherine V rock and Beki Wills. Photo Credit: Beki Wills

What role do each of you play in creating these After Life Drawing events?

Cat: My main focus in ‘After Life Drawing’ is the make up and costume design. I have always been fascinated by prosthetic makeup. I love films classics like Alien, Pans Labyrinth and Beetlejuice – anything with a unique story, memorable characters and horror. The thing I love about films like these is the fact that creatures and effects are made of something real, be it a costume, mask, make up or clay.  I love that they actually physically exist and that you can touch them.

We really want to create weird and horrific characters for people to draw, horrors that could exist in our world. It’s not only really fun to draw (who doesn’t love drawing a woman wearing a crown of human heads or a someone impaled on a flagpole?) but it also challenges you artistically by making you draw something out of the ordinary. We welcome people of all drawing experience to come and join us.

Beki: We usually collaborate totally on the theme, storyline and any script that needs writing, re-writing, etc.  Cat’s expertise is costume and any prosthetics, fake blood and gore, and I will be scenery backdrops, props and music etc. We both host the night and narrate the story.  Years of teaching life drawing means I am model liaison and we’ve got some amazing models lined up for future events. Everyone seems to want to get covered in gore!

‘After Life Drawing’ is a combination of life drawing and storytelling with terrifying prosthetics and scenery. How much of this is performance and how much is still life?

Cat: We are still trying to figure out this balance and in the end it comes down to the story we are telling at the time.  For example, our first event was the Hanover Horror (a tragic story of a widow trying to bring her love back from the dead, which ultimately goes very wrong.) Here we told the story through a classic life drawing structure but with short scenes before and after the poses; narratively linked tableaus, if you will. This really allows the audience to connect with the story, getting some emotion and character context before drawing the scene. In this case the audience could have ended up with a full story in their sketchbook.

Photo theme: Murder and Possession

In our most recent Valentines Day theme event, ‘Tainted Love’, we decided to explore two shorter stories, focusing more on setting and the characters. We don’t want to hold ourselves to a rigid format.  The joy of ‘After Life’ is that every event will be different and unique. Some will be more performative and some will focus on the look of the still image. It all depends on the stories we want to tell, then the character we want to draw. What will always be the same is the feel of the evening, a night of relaxed drawing fun with a horrific theatrical edge.

Where do you think you’ll take ‘After Life Drawing’ in the future and are there any events lined up that we should know about?

Beki: Obviously we love using Puppet Place as a venue, being both artist residents, but we realise that we can only have a certain amount of people attending. Our main aim is for bigger, bolder and more gore, plus multiple venues for the same event, festivals and conventions. There is a lead up time of about a month to build and make for one night and that’s a lot of effort, and if we can share the night with more artists, whatever their creative ability, that’s a bonus.

We just have a date confirmed at Puppet Place, 30th of May … so join us on Facebook and watch this space!

Interview with Martha King