Our Monster Friend

I couldn’t breathe. Gasping for air, I looked to my team, no one could help me. We were all laughing so hard we had to escape, run from each other to catch a breath. None of us had laughed this hard before. Some were doubled over, others were rolling on the ground. We watched Roxie ride Baby Cheezle, spinning in circles with huge puppet arms pumping to the music. It was the funniest thing we’d ever seen. That’s when I knew puppets were my life's work.

There were a lot of tears that weekend. Mostly tears of joy, some of frustration, some of pure awe. By the end of the trip we had come full circle, changed some lives and brought new life into this world more than once. We were a team of comedians, puppet makers and weirdos who had been hired to build a monster. What we ended up building was a team of creators who could make magic happen with the push of a button.

Creating life from nothing has always been a theme since I was a child. I remember when I was in grade school I taped a bunch of cardboard boxes together, drew a face on it and told my mom I built a robot. The “robot” even had a tape recorder I had recorded different robot phrases onto incase I needed a friend.

The older I got the more I became infatuated with costumes. Every Halloween I’d create an original monster costume, something similar to a mascot costume than an outfit. I started using foam and making giant heads. Over time I got obsessed with sewing and eventually created my first puppets.

I fell in love with the tools of my trade. My industrial sewing machine had this sound that was so pleasing to my ears I just wanted to keep sewing. Keep making. Just to hear that sound. The feel of my insanely sharp fiskars scissors gives me goosebumps cutting through certain fabrics. The way it glides with a subtle friction. The tactile feeling cutting, gluing and sewing makes me so happy. Knowing the joy I will bring to others makes me fulfilled.

Once I saw peoples reactions to my puppets I knew I landed on something special. I also knew I had to do something big to get the world's attention. I got a group together and applied to be a part of a festival to make a giant puppet. Something never seen before. Something completely new.

Her name was Cheezle the Weasel. She was a Weasel who had eaten a toxic cheese and grown huge. All of her organs had gained sentiance, even the worms in her stomach! Her stomach would open up and the organs would sing songs and tell jokes. There were seven worms that would pop out of different holes and talk to people walking by. The third eye would tell people's fortunes. The tongue would accept gifts. The tail had a virtual reality video about the creator stuck inside Cheezle.

We played scientists studying the weasel and learning about it’s new features. The height of the experience was a birthing ceremony where Cheezle gave birth to Baby Cheezle, a baby version of the weasel that was a drivable car made out of an electric wheelchair. People absolutely lost their minds when I exploded out of the weasel (birthing sounds being blasted through speakers) flying through the crowd yelling for people to make way for Baby Cheezle!

We thought that would be the highlight of the project but it ended up being a side note to something much more impactful.

When we were designing the project I felt like something was missing. I could see all the jokes, I could see the surprises but I felt like there wasn’t heart in the project. So we created the heart room. A secret room in the back of Cheezle where we could take certain people. People would come inside the secret fur room, put on headphones and talk to Cheezle’s heart, represented by a giant puppet face. The headphones had the sounds of floating in a womb. There were fairy lights all around and it was just you and the heart.

The heart had a nice, kind face and would speak to you about your time at the party, how you were doing and a time where you opened your heart to someone and how it went. We talked about love. We had so many intimate, personal connections with people in the heart room. Because they were alone and because they were talking to a puppet people were able to let their guard down and be honest. Get real. We helped people through tough moments, gave them advice and left some crying their eyes out. Crying in the best way.

We learned a lot about making art and the way people connect with puppets at that party. We learned the power of one on one experiences and how puppets can talk to people in ways a human can’t. We learned to laugh harder than we’d ever laughed before. And all of this came out of our hands. From our needle and thread, from our scissors and fabric, from our hearts and minds.