With my birthday coming closer and closer and the sideeffect of getting older and older and trying to figure out where i stand, i decided to write about it. To think about the question (and i get this question a lot) “how does one become a puppet artist?” I will try and answer it here.. for you… but also for myself. Because it is always a good thing to challenge oneself and try to get to the bottom of things.

To be honest, i never had an appropriate answer to that question and i still don’t have one now, i just want to develop it as i go on. Comb through my life and try to see where the most influential things are hidden.

When i was little, i guess the most important things for me were nature and family, also i didn’t really see anything else because i grew up in a very small town somewhere well hidden in the south of austria. I developed strange emotional attachment to inanimate objects at an very early stage. So almost every thing that surrounded me was as precious as a good friend, even more, it WAS a good friend. I never really liked other kids, i didn’t want to have them over neither did i want to go and visit. I was kind of a loner and it was alright.

Next to objects, animals were my best friends and i had and still have a shit load of empathy for them. (Go vegan!) This made me do strange things like starting petitions against factory farming and the slaughter of baby seals in my very small hometown where almost everyone was a farmer. I was about eight or nine at this time, hand drawn pamphlets, printed out in the office of my father. Looking back i am very proud of myself.

So…drawing and creating plus empathy for inanimate objects and animals equals me ?

I think i also have to thank Steven Spielberg for who i am today and my father who brought home the VHS of E.T when i was far too young to process this landslide of emotions. If i had to choose one movie that was most important for me i would choose this one. Even today I can’t even make it through the trailer without crying. But talking of E.T now, you can see where we are heading right? In my backflash montage i am not yet ten years old and already we can see patterns that are highly important for my work today. My close relationship with all my creations, creating a world and a family, i think this is a huge motivation of mine.

I know it is not really common to talk art through memories or, god forbid, feelings. Maybe i should talk art history instead.. well, maybe next time.

Now, let me take you by the hand and jump a big gap of burried memories to right this day, because i will let this post rest now. But before let’s add some more influencal movies, shall we? So there was

The Neverending Story (book and film)

Labyrinth (David Bowie as the Goblin King? It can’t get any better)

The Dark Crystal (here i have to add that i was more amazed by the making of than the actual movie)

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (BUT stictly the BBC mini series from 1988. If you haven’t seen it, here is the youtube link to it)

All those Walt Disney movies that leave little children emotionaly disturbed after watching. Like Dumbo or The Fox and the Hound.

Now that i start digging i can see that there is a void where we could get lost forever. So let’s stop it here and pick it up another time. Keep in mind, i am still not older than ten years at this blogstage.

Here is a picture of me where i look as happy and crazy as a little child should be (mabye someone should have told my parents that there is huge difference between a clown and a mouse :))