First Art Lesson at Artevelde Hogeschool - Puppetry. (18th Feb 2014)

We began looking at Puppetry in our previous art lesson and were shown different facts about puppetry in Belgium, like how Luk De Bouyler reinvented puppetry in Gent and about the Pierke Pierlala story, which I would like to see during my time on Erasmus here. This made me think back to my childhood and how I would have seen the puppet show ‘Punch and Judy’ numerous times. I grew up in Northern Ireland and I feel that my country is influenced by both British and Irish cultures, due to this I will be making reference to both cultures throughout my blog, even though I consider myself as Irish, I cannot ignore that there was a British cultural influence in my upbringing – and this is the reason that I would have watched these puppet shows.

One thing I noticed as a young child watching ‘Punch and Judy’ – which were various short sketches about Mr. Punch and his wife Judy; was that the design of the puppets were quite dramatic and often frightened me with their bulging eyes, long noses, heavy make-up and Victorian clothing:

 (Example of Punch and Judy Puppets taken from Google Images)

Due to this whilst making my puppet in art class I have decided to make my puppet more child friendly, meaning I could use it in a classroom. However, I do appreciate the dramatic effect that these ‘scary’ puppets give as I studied Drama at High School – I just feel as a teacher of young children, a ‘prettier’ puppet would be more effective in assisting me with a lesson.

We then went on to look at the ‘Festival of Gent’ which takes place yearly involving puppetry. It reminded me of the ‘Festival of Fools’ that takes place in the city of Belfast, where I live. The streets of Belfast City Centre and Cathedral Quarter come alive for five days every May to the sound of laughter and the sight of acrobatics, music and comedy. Artists from around the world come to perform at one of Belfast’s most popular events – the annual street theatre festival celebrating the international language of laughter. (Which I feel ties in with the theme of the blog – A Search for Happiness)

(The ‘Festival of Fools’ advertising poster in Belfast, with a puppet on it.)

I feel that focusing on Puppetry through art is a great idea for use in the classroom. Lots of cultural exploration can be involved and it could be linked with lots of other subjects too, such as Literacy. The children could be focused on a certain book and they could make some of the main characters into puppets and use them for learning.

I also liked the Clay dictation we did today and feel it would help the children to be very creative and to think independently.

(Image I took of my piece of clay before adaptation).