Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2008SYR13
Purchase Details
11x17-inches, printed on heavy weight (100-pound) Hammermill cover paper. We package each print with a piece of chipboard in a clear plastic sleeve.
You also receive…
An information page with photos of the artist and poet, and hand-written comments from each.
Medium- and large-format posters are available by custom order. Contact us for details.
Poem Inspiration Location
Tiny Castle Looms
poster information
Description
Tiny Castle looms —
Puppets, both dwarf and giant
Open Hand gives life!
I live in Auburn, but I made it a point to check out Open Hand Theater, and I fell in love with the people over there and what they do. People don't realize it, but puppetry, internationally, is not a childish thing. All over the world, puppetry is considered legitimate theater.
Being an immigrant -- I'm Ukrainian -- I grew up with Baba Yaga and fables and folklore and Grimm's fairy tales. And with puppets dwarf and giant, Open Hand gives life to this fantasy, these stories, in this little castle right here in Syracuse.
Their symbol is the open hand. It's like an invitation: Come into this world, and this castle (International Mask and Puppet Museum), and we will give life to all these fantasies, fables, stories. These masks, we animate them; these puppets sitting on our shelves, we give them life. Open Hand gives life!
When we got the haikus, that one jumped out as one of my favorites, because I actually took a class through the Soling Program, where I worked with Geoffrey Navias and the Open Hand puppet people. We made a bunch of puppets and put on a big show at the end. I thought it was such a great place, something really fun, and something you wouldn't necessarily think would be here in Syracuse.
I went back to take a few photographs for this project, and they had the Indian puppets out. Over last winter break, I went to India with my professor, John Thompson. So it does have a bit of an Indian feel to it. And the castle -- it doesn't exactly match the Open Hand Theater building, but I wanted the idea there. Plus, it's a pretty unique building.