A conversation with Sol Ramirez
Transcript from episode eight of the Good Folk Podcast.
Paying subscribers to Good Folk receive access to the full transcripts of the Good Folk Podcast. All subscribers can listen to the podcast here. If you would like to become a paying subscriber, you can do so here.
SPENCER GEORGE: Hello, folks. My name is Spencer George, and this is the Good Folk Podcast. I would like to begin today's episode with a question. When you think of puppetry, where does your mind go?
If you, like me, conjure up images of the muppets or ventriloquists or the hand puppets you might have made in elementary school out of an old pair of socks, then I am very excited for you to meet our guest today, who will broaden your horizons of what puppetry can be far beyond what you might know it as. For Sol Ramirez, puppetry is an art form, one with deep historical and social justice roots.
Sol Ramirez is a 19-year-old artist, activist, musician, and puppeteer. Throughout his young career, he has worked with Paperhand Puppet Intervention, Tarish “Jeghetto” Pipkins, the Hillsborough Arts Council and Orange County Arts Commission, and is the creator and director of 1, 2, 3 Puppetry, a puppet theatre company based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He currently is attending school at the University of Connecticut where he is majoring in the Puppet Arts BFA program— and yes, that does exist.
Puppetry, as I have come to understand it, weaves together the best of visual art and theater, using physical representations to convey deeper truths about our world. Puppetry has a long history as a folk practice that entertains and teaches at the same time. It has existed in some form in almost all civilizations and all time periods. Puppetry is said to pre-date written theater, and, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, represents one of the most primitive instincts of the human race. It is also known as the origin of all drama.
If you ask me, that instinct is about art and connection, and taking on other forms in order to build those connections. Puppetry blurs the lines between actor and object, utilizing aesthetic representations to communicate deeper truths. It is no doubt an art form, even if it is an art form we hear little about in modern society. Here in North Carolina, we have an extensive network of puppeteers, and most notably, young puppeteers. I am so excited to introduce you to Sol, who is not only creating beautiful, elaborate productions, but building community, telling stories, and, most of all, inspiring a new generation of young artists. This is Sol Ramirez.
SG: Sol, I'm super excited to have you here. I'm really interested in the work you do, and I'm excited to hear a lot more about it. I guess that would be kind of the leading question of, you know, could you tell us a little bit more about yourself, your artistry, 1, 2, 3 Puppetry, and how you got involved in this, because you're the first person I've ever met to do it professionally, so I'm really interested to hear.
SOL RAMIREZ: Yeah. Well, my name is Sol Ramirez, and puppetry has been in and around me and my life for basically as long as I can remember. And I know, just based off of the stories I've been told from my family, that I grew up watching this little program called Baby Einstein, which was little hand puppets and a lot of colors and toys and things like that. And it was kind like a baby version of Sesame Street. And then once I got a little bit older, then I watched Sesame Street, which has Jim Henson's muppets in it. And then when I got a little bit older, it was Frabbell Rock and The Muppets Show. So a lot of Jim Henson shows and a lot of hand puppets.
But then my parents saw that I was taking a strong interest in puppetry and art and just creativity in general, and so in the summer of 2006, they took me to see Paperhand Puppet Intervention, which is based in North Carolina, and they work at their studio in Saxapahaw. And they've been doing shows for 20+ years in Chapel Hill at the Forest Theater on UNC's campus. We went as a family to go see their 2006 production called As The Crow Flies. And even though I was only three years old, I can remember still being just completely, like, in awe and transformed, in sensory overload for a three year old kid who liked puppets, but had no idea about just the vast world of puppetry in general. Paperhand uses giant rod puppets that can be 35ft tall, stilt walkers, masks, a live band. And the first scene that they did in as the Crow Flies was the story of John Henry, who is a steel driving man and this iconic Black folklore hero. They did the story in song. And that's always been my favorite puppet memory ever. Right after that, basically, I started going home, printing out photos they had on their website, making little versions of the puppets I saw them perform. We had several family friends in the company, and my dad actually did CD duplications for the music of the show. The directors would come pick those CDs up because we were still in a time where CDs were— it was kind of starting to die already— but it was still vastly used. They would come pick up those CDs and I would drag them to my room to show them all the things I'd made, and I made a little drum kit like the director had. I think they were also in awe of me at that point because it's this little kid that's replicated everything they've done.
So Paperhand was my start, and I think they knew then it was only a matter of time until I started working with them, and I did, and I've been working with them for about eight years. Paperhand really was my start into puppetry. And they inspired me to start 1, 2, 3 Puppetry, which is my company that I started in around like kindergarten or first grade, something around that time, where it was, literally, I'm too young to do Paper Hand, so I might as well start doing stuff on my own for right now and get used to it and then merge into Paper Hand once I'm old enough. I'd get friends that I had, and we started off by doing little puppet shows for the preschoolers and other students or faculty that would come watch during recess. And it started growing from there into what it is now, which is also its own puppet company that has been doing giant outdoor spectacles and shows for about five or six years now.
SG: It sounds amazing. There's so many things I want to talk about, about what you just said. But the first thing I want to start with is so many artists that we talk to— and I'm an artist, I'm a writer, Victoria is an artist and photographer— all have this kind of moment when you witness your craft in some way, shape, or form, that it's just like, holy shit, basically. Like, I want to do that for the rest of my life. I remember my moment was like reading Harry Potter, and at six years old, and I remember I closed the last book and— you know, J.K. Rowling aside, today— I finished the book, and I immediately opened my computer and started writing my first novel, and I have never looked back. And when you have been doing something like that for so long, and you have that moment where it's just like, this is it— it's almost magic. You're completely captivated by it, and you can't look away. People talk a lot about what makes a good artist. And if you had to ask me, I would say not so much the artist, but that's what makes good art, is when you have an audience that you can't look away.
Would you say that this was one of those kind of moments for you? Of like, this is it. This is what I want to do forever, and I'm going to dedicate everything I have to this practice?
SR: Totally, a hundred percent. Yeah, because Jan and Donovan, who are the co-directors and creators of Paperhand Puppet Intervention, they always tell me, especially Donovan, I used to think I was lucky when I found puppetry at eighteen or nineteen years old, and look at you, you came and saw one of our shows at three and knew exactly that that's what you want to do with your life. And it really has. I mean, I remember there's always been, the people like, what do you want to be when you grow up, Jimmy? Oh, I want to be a police officer or Tommy wants to be a fireman, or things like that. And I was always stuck and motivated to stick with puppetry. I feel very lucky for that because it takes people a lot of time and a lot of searching sometimes to find what they feel they're meant to do here. And I was able to get on that train early because of the people that supported me with it.
SG: It's a rare thing when that happens, and I think it's especially interesting when you're very young when it happens, because the attitudes of the people around you will change a lot. And I'm hoping you could touch on this. It's one thing when you're five or six years old to be like, when I grow up, you know, Jimmy wants to be a police officer, I'm going to be a puppeteer. Family is like, oh, that's cute, good for you. Now, when you're eighteen or nineteen and you're like, I'm going to do this, I'm really going to do this. How have the attitudes of the people around you changed in response to that? Have you felt supported in this work?
SR: I've always been supported. My parents, I always tell them every day I talk with them, especially now that I'm in college, and always I tell them, you're the best parents in the whole world. Because they supported me from day one. They weren't people that were like, oh, no, art, enjoy that on the side. But “real jobs” is the field you have to go into and things like that. Which has always puzzled me when people are like that, because being an artist is a real job. It might not get the same financial support that others get, but it's going down its own field and own path. And if more people do it, then eventually it will be viewed as its own professional job.
My parents were and are still always supportive of me wanting to be an artist and activist and musician, puppeteer, all these things. Great. You want to be a puppeteer? Alright. What do you need help with? What do you need us to do? My mom would cut all my puppets for me when I was younger because I couldn’t use scissors or box cutters. My dad would help me with the music, and still has, for even our last show, which was in the spring of this year. He was our sound guy, and my mom ran the front of house for the past several years while my dad was doing sound. They'd bring their family friends to help be a box office member who welcomes people in or stuff like that.
So not only were they extremely helpful in those beginning years, but as it's developed and grown into a big family and company, they've helped bring even more people in to help support me and my parents, Jan Burger and Donovan Zimmerman of Paperhand Puppet Intervention— they gave me my inspiration for it and saw, I think, kind of that spark in me, and knew that if they were to help me grow that spark and help it just continue to grow within me, that there would be not only a great worker in the puppet community, but also someone who would always come back and help them. Which is what I always have wanted to do.
I’ve just been super, you know, lucky, I guess, to have the people around that I have had around. And those are just the two main people. My whole family in general has been so supportive. And all the other local puppeteers, like Tarish “Jeghetto” Pipkins, who's a puppeteer, entrepreneur, and just traveler now at this point, because he's, oh, hey, I'm in Atlanta. Oh, now I'm in New York. Now I'm back in North Carolina for the day to say hi to people. He also was part of the Paperhand community when I was growing up, and I've done several shows with him and productions. The circle I have always been in has always been a very good one.
SG: Yes, parents, take note because this is exactly what it means to be a good, supportive parent to your artist child. I think any of us who are artists are listening, are like, wow, I either had that or I want that.
One thing that I want to touch on is— I think if you were to go up to somebody random on the street and ask them, like, hey, tell me about puppetry, people probably would be like, what? Could you give us a little bit of the overview? I love Paperhand. I'm in graduate school at UNC, so I'm kind of surrounded by that all the time. For people who are not in North Carolina or who have no idea, like, the history of the field of puppetry or where it kind of stands today, could you give us just a brief overview, starting with Paperhand and maybe expanding out if you are willing to?
SR: Yeah, well, Paperhand, like I said earlier, they've been doing giant puppet shows in the area for about twenty-two years now. Every year it's a new social message, environmental message, and story. They use puppetry in a way that's maybe not so familiar to some. A lot of people know of the muppets and hand puppet styles, and maybe if they research a little more, they might know about shadow puppetry and things like that. But giant puppetry is something that I think so a lot of people don't know too much about. And Paperhand, one of their big inspirations was Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont, who have been doing giant puppet shows since, I think the late fifties, early sixties. So you can see how each group has been inspired by puppet groups before them or things like that, and they've taken that inspiration and developed their own thing. And that's just giant puppetry, with masks and stilts and music.
But puppetry itself has been around for thousands and thousands of years. I mean, you can trace back puppetry a really long time. The really cool thing is that because of the classes I'm taking at UConn, and I'm sure we'll touch on school in a little bit, but I'm lucky enough to be able to take an Intro to World Puppetry class where I get to learn even more about puppetry as art form, as activism, as a cultural identity, and things like that. Whether it's ancient Chinese shadow puppetry, that was performed when the sun was out and starting to set so that you could cast a nice shadow onto a screen or onto even just whatever was in front of you or behind you, or Indonesian rod puppetry, that has been around for hundreds of years. The cool thing about rod puppetry is it's basically the smaller scale of giant puppets that I'm used to. Rod puppets usually have one stick for the head, two sticks for the arms, and you move it around like this. Giant puppets you basically take one of those rods and give them to one person to hold up and it basically increases the size by quite a lot. Several feet, at least.
Let's see, what other puppetry forms… Masks! Masks are just a staple in almost every culture, if you look into it, especially Mexican culture, which is where I come from. And it's crazy just looking back and being like, wow, these influences have been around me this whole time and looking at the art and the masks and just puppetry that's everywhere. Because another really cool thing about puppetry is its object performance and its movement. I could pick up a pencil, move it around in a certain way, and say, oh, this is an airplane flying around, and then now I'm performing puppetry. Puppetry is literally taking an object and giving it meaning. Puppetry is all around us. And that means puppetry has been with us since the beginning of us as people on this planet. So that's a very kind of stripped down and also not so stripped down history of puppetry in some ways. And I'm still always learning more about it.
“Puppetry is literally taking an object and giving it meaning. Puppetry is all around us. And that means puppetry has been with us since the beginning of us as people on this planet.”
SG: I love the way you frame that, as it's taking an object and giving it meaning. Just an amazing lens to look at that through. I mean, I would have had no idea about the history. I am very involved in the arts, and I've never gotten a chance to study puppetry. One thing that you bring up is the intersection of art and activism here, and how puppetry is a field that is tied to a lot of cultural significance and gives you the opportunity to kind of share history, talk about what's going on. Theater, in a lot of ways, is a very unique art form for that. It provides you something that other art forms don't, which is that it is kind of the written text and the performance text. Dance is maybe the only other thing that does that besides puppetry.
Could you talk a little bit more about this intersection of activism? You've mentioned it in your own practice. It's obviously very important in our practice as artists with Good Folk. What does that look like, of bringing activism into art, especially in the field of modern puppetry?
SR: Well, I think they really just go hand in hand, and it's so easy because art is a form of expression. So you could take a big speech that someone makes about current society and make it a puppet show, and it would be the perfect script or something like that. And puppetry has, you know, always had ties to a belief or a message. They would use puppets to show, you know, how the kings and queens were treating the regular townspeople, or they would use puppetry to show the great battles that are going on in the world. Puppetry has been used to protest outside of the White House or walking down the streets of different political gatherings or protest marches.
It makes me think of this really cool Paperhand story that Jan Burger shared with me before, where they were doing a protest march with their puppets. And this is a very condensed version of the story, but they're doing a protest march with the puppets, and the police stop them, saying you can't be doing that here. Get all these hippie artists and puppeteers out of here. We're going to arrest you. And he told me, and this always has stuck with me, as they're confiscating the puppets to go throw them away, the police are dragging this puppet that is Liberty. It's a Lady Liberty puppet. They're dragging the Liberty puppet by the hair across across the pavement to the trash can. And Jan is just like, does anyone have a camera? Because this would be a perfect thing, because they acted out their own object performance, and were able to say more than I think any activist could try to say about our society.
I'm not interested in art unless it has a message, really. And the nice thing is, all art has a message. It doesn't matter how big or small or how poignant or how directed it is, there's always going to be a message with art. It's something that I think even as I've grown older, I've connected to even more. Because now that I'm older, now that I've seen the world that we live in, I have a lot of things to say. And I can say that through my art and through the music that is being made along with my puppet shows.
I feel like it's almost, to me, my preferred way. I'm not necessarily this loud-voiced individual who can go up and give this big speech. I can, if needed. But I prefer to be with a puppet or with some form of art and let the images that I'm creating or the music I'm creating speak for itself and connect with people on different levels instead of giving someone this big paper that I've written, and this is exactly what you're supposed to think of it. I'd say the best part of the message within art is it can be something different to someone than it is to the person who created it. It can make you think. And as long as my shows or as long as my art makes someone think, who knows what that can lead to? That's why I think art with a message in puppetry, with activism, is something that I'm so connected with and something that's always been a connection throughout time.
“I'm not interested in art unless it has a message, really. And the nice thing is, all art has a message. It doesn't matter how big or small or how poignant or how directed it is, there's always going to be a message with art.”
SG: Can I just say, you're only nineteen, correct?
SR: Yeah.
SG: You're wise beyond your years. I've been listening. I'm just like, I agree with that, I agree with that. I was not this way at nineteen. [laughs].
Two things I want to get into, and you've mentioned it briefly, is, number one, you are now at UConn, which is the University of Connecticut, for anybody who doesn't know, studying puppetry, which I would love to hear you talk a little bit about this as an academic discipline. I study folklore, so I'm also in a very niche academic field. It's the really fun thing at parties that— I'm sure you've had this experience before— where people are like, oh, what do you do? And you're like, oh, I'm a folklorist. I'm a puppeteer. And people are like, what?
So what does that look like to study in an academic setting, this kind of artistic field? How is the response of your classmates, your peers, your roommates? Just the experience of being a nineteen year old in an academic program like this. And I'm very interested, just personally in what it looks like.
And then also the experience of doing this in a totally different region. North Carolina, as anyone who listens to the podcast is learning, has this very deep history of arts, of activism. All of these things are so ingrained to the way we live here. And it can be really jarring sometimes if you've grown up in that environment to leave and suddenly realize the way the people view the South as a place, and how that becomes a new form of activism a lot of times in Southern artists' work. We see this historically, I had this experience, Victoria had this experience. I don't know if you're having that experience, or if that's something you think might come up, but what does it mean to you to be a Southern artist and building on that tradition?
SR: Yeah. I'd say for the first question, it's really interesting doing puppetry combined within my education. I've been so used to for, you know, a long time, having to juggle the two as two very independent things and two very different things. Like, oh, I have my own show to do, and I also have this AP literature project that's due tomorrow, and which one is more important when it's the night before the show and this big project due?. I'm used to those kinds of situations, and just because I'm majoring in puppetry here, it doesn't mean that I only do arts related things. I have to still take the standard curriculum and required classes and courses for UConn, but it feels so much more together and combined and mixed because I'm able to say that this is part of my study.
Because of that, I get to take several different arts classes that are meant to help me be a better puppeteer and have a better understanding of puppetry in the world around me. Like, I take a drafting class, which is definitely needed for larger productions that I want to do in figuring out, oh, I want these dimensions, or I need to be able to scale this and things like that for just making a set or for knowing what theater I need for this show that I have. Or I take a design class, which has helped me learn how to design those sets and have a more technical understanding of it, rather than just, I think this tree looks cool here, and I'll tell this person, I think this tree looks cool here. The nice thing about design is, it's letting me work from the standpoint of someone just working. It's not me doing the whole thing, which is what I'm kind of used to in some ways, as far as the production goes. I'm used to being my own person that I present to being like, okay, I think this is cool. Yeah, that is cool. Let's make that. And with design fundamentals, I'm able to kind of work from a different point of view.
My world puppetry class is really awesome, for obvious reasons. I get to learn and discuss puppetry with other people. It's not just other puppetry majors. It's other people that just had an interest in taking the class. But on top of that, I have to take my general education courses and things like that. I can't speak on it too much because I'm only about a month into it now. We just basically just got done with going over the syllabus for this class or that class, maybe just a couple weeks ago now. Now we're actually starting to see what the workload is going to be like.
It's always been kind of a large thing to juggle puppetry and academics. And while it feels mixed more now, it's still something that I have to juggle. It's just a little easier and a little bit more together. And the nice thing is I'm working with other people. And for one of the first times where it's not necessarily a professional, like I work for you, environment. I have people that are older than me, sophomores, juniors, seniors, and graduate students who are also in the puppet program and have done these things and they're able to help me and help me understand this class you should take. Advice like, once you get the options, don't go this way. Try taking these classes because if you want more time to do puppets, these are the way, this is the way to go and things like that.
It's been a really interesting adjustment because my goal was to not try and think of a lot of puppet show ideas this first year because it’d be almost impossible with my schedule. But I think I've probably now been working on puppet show ideas for about five weeks since I've just moved in. Because I'm now surrounded even more so with puppetry and seeing the amount of people that I'm able to work with and that want to work with me, it's kind of impossible to turn off that creativity in me.
SG: I guess that means you're really on the right path. In that it’s like, even when you tell yourself, I'm not going to do that— I just finished a book and then started sending it out to agents and I was like, okay, now I'm going to take a break. And then I had an idea for how I could rewrite it again and now I'm on my 5AM wake up doing the same thing. I think it just really speaks to this community and this practice and you're like, no, this really is like what I want to be doing so much so that I can't turn it off.
SR: I had literally just got into the state of Connecticut and just had a random thought bubble of, oh, wouldn't that kind of be a cool concept to explore in a show, and then immediately trying to throw that away but taking a small little note of it because I know it's a good idea and I would want to revisit it. And that turned into, like, trying to fight against opening my sketchbook and drawing puppet ideas and then looking up information on these different ideas I was having. And then it turned into, okay, well, now it's just going to be easier to work on it by myself. So by the time I do have time, I'm able to have everything ready. So now that's my new approach to making a show right now. And that should be interesting. But with that first question, I might need the second one repeated to me because now I've just been thinking about puppet shows.
SG: Well, I want to divert from that because I have a couple of questions out of these puppet shows, which are, number one, when you talk about it—because you're talking about drawing the designs and then you've mentioned a little bit the music— are you the one doing all of that or do you get to bring in a team of people? And number two, if you're willing to share, could we get a teaser of some of these ideas or maybe one of your favorite puppet shows you've put on?
SR: Yeah. I'm really glad now I get to talk about the amazing team that I've had. And it's a little weird because now I'm away from a lot of that team, and it's not as certain when we're going to all get back together for a new show. But besides from my family or my parents, more specifically, my sister, who is thirteen right now, she has grown up watching me do puppetry, and she's been in my shows since she could basically hold a puppet. At first it was like, you know, I need help, and it's this little sister who wants to be there and help her big brother. But I've seen her grow into art as well, and she does sketches, she does clothing designs and all these really cool things, but she's also been, you know, my longest running puppeteer for my company.
In close second place by a couple of years difference, there's my best friend Jasper, who's going to Warren Wilson in North Carolina. He is not a puppet person at all or was not a puppet person at all. He's a very quiet and kept together person who loves reading. He's always been someone who you wouldn't think is going to be doing puppet shows. But because he's my best friend, I ended up asking him once when I was just starting to really start the company, because I created it when I was a little kid, but there's almost two different iterations of 1, 2, 3 Puppetry. Just the kind of idea and doing smaller shows and backyard performances, and then there's, okay, let's start putting a whole year of work into these things, making it official, applying for grants, putting on big shows at a public venue. And right as we were starting that 1, 2, 3 Puppetry, he joined in. The growth he's had as a performer is incredible, because he's always going to support me and that's what makes him such a great friend, and he wanted to do that so he could help me. But then I think I've seen him grow as a performer and artist and puppeteer in those past six years that he's been doing it. Just last year I tasked him for the first time with writing his own scene for the show and reading that scene as a spoken word puppet scene in our last show. Watching back that footage every once in a while, it's super cool to see just how how much he's grown to the point where now he was able to write his own little script and present it and workshop it with me and help us make the puppets for that scene. His grandparents would come over and paint the fence puppets and they do the carpentry because his family are carpenters and, so the whole Schmoke family got in on the scene and they've always been super supportive of Jasper and myself and 1, 2, 3 Puppetry.
That's Jasper. And there's so many, you know, so many people, so many Zola's friends have helped. But I think kind of to round out the puppet side, there's Tarin Pipkins, who is Tarish Pipkins’ son, who is known as “Jeghetto” as a stage name, is a puppeteer and an activist and an artist. And his son, kind of just like me, was so interested in it that he does his own puppet shows and makes his own puppets. The difference is that he's thirteen too, so he's almost gotten a little bit more of a head start with professional puppetry than I have. He's been doing my shows for the past several years as well, too. And it's really cool being like, oh, wow, now we can hand Tarin this giant puppet to hold because now he's grown a couple of feet and put on more muscle and is able to run around stage. It's super cool watching him grow in the sense of just a child growing into this young teenager, but also a performer growing his own performer, really, someone working for people with being able to do just as much on his own.
And then Sophie Joy, who's been doing Paperhand along with me for the past several years now, she is an amazing painter, an amazing puppet builder because she's worked as an intern and builder for Paperhand for the past several years, and now she's upgraded to studio artist and has the keys to the Paperhand building, things like that. So she's grown in her own respect. I brought her on a couple of years ago to help me. And she really has come as close to a stage manager role as someone has before with these shows. I'm so used to kind of doing a lot of it myself, and I was like, wow, this is an amazing artist who I can just be like, hey, can you make this? And they'll have it done by the end of the week. Just an amazing artist in general. And she's also, you know, she's eighteen. I've gotten lucky with finding so many awesome artists. The cool thing, all of them, but especially Sophie, is she's able to bring her own opinions and her own thoughts and feedback and criticism. Sometimes because you're so used to being the director, it's like, oh, but this is still my thing, or stuff like that. You're able to then be like, wow, but look at how lucky you are to have someone who cares about it just as much. And you're able to hand them even more responsibilities and even more titles to the point where last year we gave her,and she worked for the title of Puppet Production Manager, is what her title was. So that was super cool because she's an amazing artist.
And then on the band side, I have to give a super special shout out to Evren because they are just an amazing drummer, an amazing musician. Every day I am so thankful that I met them because we went to the same school, and some people suggested I reach out to Evren and explain what the puppet shows were, and I did and they're like, that sounds really awesome. I remember— and I hope they do not get too upset for me sharing the story, but it's a good one— we had a very small band a couple of years ago, their first year helping me. It was three people, including me. And we only had me and one other person until, I think, two weeks before the show. And Evren basically was an emergency musician and their first practice or rehearsal for the band, they knocked on the door, I opened it, and Evren's there, you know, the savior of the puppet music, and says, I dropped my water bottle and it's glass and I think it broke all over your front porch, is it okay if I could use a trash can? I always joke saying right there, I knew they were going to be with us for a while. Just the musicianship and quality and dedication that they've brought over the past couple of years to these shows., it's like, wow, we have really solid puppets and really solid rhythms in music now. Because we co-wrote a lot of different ideas together for our last show.
Evren’s just been just an amazingly high spirited person who has helped us so much in the music department. I do percussion and I know what good music sounds like, but I don't know notes and I don't know music theory and I don't know how to write stuff. Evren knows all of that. Just as a whole group, there's so many other people, but you can see now how lucky I am to be able to grow these shows as these talented people join on and jump into it. And so, yeah, that's my team. And it's always growing, especially now that I have a whole classroom of other puppeteers now. It almost feels kind of too easy to get together a group of people, and I'm sure it won't be once I actually start it, but it's like, there's so many opportunities now here at connecticut. It's pretty crazy.
SG: Well, you get to build out the community, and then it just kind of grows and grows. We talk about that all the time here of, like, I wanted to do this project forever, and then I met Victoria, and I was like, what if I did this? And then, what if you helped? Now we just connect with amazing people and, yeah, shout out to Evren. We know Evren, and we love Evren. If you're listening, hello, Evren. They were on our episode with Trash Tape Records a few episodes back so you can go back and listen.
Another amazing group of people doing all kinds of things. I don't know the high school environment that you all went to, but it seems to be producing a lot of artists. I have a friend who also went to this high school who is now a theater artist, so it seems like it's just spiraling. I'm like, man, I wish I went here.
I don't want to gloss over the fact that you launched an entire puppetry company as a teenager, and you're talking about grant writing and development and all the things that any adult who works in the nonprofit arts world knows, but most teenagers do not know. How did that even happen? The steps to launching a company or any kind of nonprofit organization are not easy, and you're talking about it so nonchalantly. Could you tell us a little bit about what that was like? You're like, oh, yeah, no big deal. I just launched my own company.
SR: Well, I'd say we'd been doing kind of the second iteration. One was a much larger scale production for about two years, and then I just happened to be scrolling on the 1, 2, 3 Puppetry Instagram, and I saw this post by this group called the Orange County Arts Commission in North Carolina, saying the deadline for project grants is in three days. And I was like, oh, whoa, grant? I haven't thought about that. And I was probably fifteen or something at the time, so I guess I wouldn't usually think of that. But I went to my parents, and I was like, you think this would be a good idea? And my mom helped me write a grant application. I think they were also maybe surprised at a fifteen year old, first, just applying for a grant, and then second, what the grant was for and stuff like that.
I was super excited when I received the news that I got my first grant from the Orange County Arts Commission. That was a huge help, like, whoa, we actually have, like, materials for this year's show, or we can actually buy stuff and it not come directly from our own pockets and it could actually maybe start being a thing now. And they then awarded me Vitamin O Artist of the Month, I believe is what it's called. And it was with Alicia Stanford, I think, and she worked with the Orange County Arts Commission, took notice of the grant, and basically put out a story about myself at that age with the grant. It's really funny because I was reading back on it while trying to write a bio earlier, and I was like, wow, there's some really interesting quotes in there. And writing about— I think there's something like fifteen year old me saying, I really love the rebellious activism aspect of fighting against poverty and social injustice. I was like, wow, is this how other people react when I’ve said these kinds of things?
SG: Oh my gosh, I don't want to see anything from when I was fifteen. I finally went back and deleted a bunch of old writings, and you'll feel the same at nineteen, give it five years. At nineteen, I thought I was so cool and sophisticated, and now in my mid-twenties, I'm like, oh, my god. And I'm sure I'll feel this way at thirty, too.
SR: That's the thing too— it's difficult because there's the natural reaction of, oh, I don't like looking back on things like that, because being an artist, you want your product to be perfect. And a fifteen year old’s first kind of big interview, it's like, wow, this is really interesting, and looking back. But also there's an archivist in me and there's a preserver and someone who recognizes the importance of documenting and preserving your stuff. And so I almost don't want to get rid of any of it, and I kind of hope that a lot of stuff that has been gotten rid of in those rare occurrences somehow magically popped back. Because I always think that could go in a cool book in a couple of years or that could be a really cool thing to show someone and this would be prime documentary footage or things like that. It's a weird combination of the two.
Getting back to the grants, just that story was super cool because I started getting like, you know, more followers on the 1, 2, 3 Puppetry account and more people coming to see the shows, and I was like, wow, is this how it works? It was cool because then they told me I was the youngest grant recipient for the Orange County Arts Commission at that time. And then I got several more grants for the past several shows. Obviously in 2020, we didn't do anything, so we didn't do any grant stuff for that. But the past several shows we've done have been funded by the Orange County Arts Commission. So once again, another really cool group of people that have helped me with the products that I've wanted to make. And it's like, wow, we don't have to put these giant puppets in our Honda anymore to go to the theater and we get to actually make stuff now at this point, the size of the truck. Like our last show called The Time We Have, had three giant sunflowers that rose from the Garden Sea and the Jasper Road. And that would not have been possible if we didn't have grant money and support and a U-Haul and things like that. Grants have been a very fun experience.
SG: It feels like what's coming up here a lot is that good art is not possible without community support.
SR: Not at all.
“Almost every conversation we have comes back to this, which is that my best art came out of community and came out of these mutual aid networks that enabled me to really do things… Good art comes out of good community and it should be as simple as that. And yet finding that community is really so often the challenge.”
SG: And that is something that is so fundamental to my belief and practice as an artist and also really at odds with the narrative that is presented culturally of what it means to be an artist, which is often very stoic. You're the starving artist trope. You're sitting at home alone, just, like, making all this stuff, and you're at odds with the world. And almost every conversation we have comes back to this, which is that my best art came out of community and came out of these mutual aid networks that enabled me to really do things. I feel that so deeply. I don't think we ever would have gotten here with Good Folk had it not been for the community of people I found myself surrounded by. Victoria's listening here, y'all can't see them, but shout out to Victoria for this. And Sol you're mentioning all these people as well. And it's like, when it comes down to it, any book, you're going to go and find an acknowledgement section in the back, right? Any artist bio, like, we should be in our bios, like, shouting out all the people who made it possible, because it really is like, good art comes out of good community and it should be as simple as that. And yet finding that community is really so often the challenge.