The song has been running through my head over the weekend, and for good reason. A BIG change is gonna come.

You may remember me discussing Kukcrafters, a local group of people who meet up to do arts and crafts. On Saturday some of us did a ‘field trip’ to a big designer festival, Finders Keepers. It took place in Shed 4 of the Docklands, which for those not in Melbourne, simply means “shed big enough to fit two planes in". So you can imagine what the scene might have been like: stalls and stalls of designer items, from clothing and accessories to furniture and decorations. The event is sort of ‘curated’, in the sense that the best of the best can show their stuff, and it was all extremely professional. (Some of my highlights: lampshades that come with custom prints - or washable markers! - secondhand book covers upcycled for notebooks, 3D paper designs that were framed, and designer cupcakes . If you’re keen on browsing, the above website has info and links to the sellers)

We all split up and went our own ways, and since I’m a fast window-shopper, I quickly went around the stalls. And this is where the changes start. You see, I brought along one of my shadow puppets - one I had been making at the Kukcrafters meet last time - which I had been playing with the night before. I was quite happy with the design, but after 1/2 hour of walking around the stalls I started to feel quite (very) upset. The laminated shadow puppet in my bag just didn’t hold up to the standards of these stall-holders, with their fancy packaging and professional displays and their catalogues. What’s worse is that I vividly recall my attempt at markets in 2009, to which I still flince at the thought of. In comparison to what I did, these people were like craft seller gods.

Fortunately for me, I had been in a large conversation with @DoTheWoo. I recently asked for some advice from my fellow Kukcrafters on where they draw the line on taking commissions. Bambi (as she’s also known ) had talked me through some suggestions on how to improve my business - much of which I’ve already tried - but she had one good idea and a lot of realism coloured with an artist’s understanding. Bambi just happened to also take the same public transport as I, and on the way back after the market we discussed some more ideas.

I’ve been quite staunch in how I wanted to do my shadow puppets, but to be honest, never really thought about a good way to commercialise it. If I were in America I could trust in a larger puppetry community to buy my wares or commission a piece. However, the Australian community is too small to support that, particularly as most puppeteers build their own stuff and don’t work in shadows. In order to make this work, I need to expand what I’m doing and make it more ‘public friendly’. It also means I will finally be able to get to the next step, which is to have an offline business that is marketable (in both senses of the word). This will, yes, mean that I have to ‘dumb down’ some of my work. I already have several themes decided on which will create this income, but will continue to work on shadow puppets as is.

What’s excellent about this is I can now see myself at a market - and enjoying the experience - along with having a product that will appeal to people who are more into the art/design side of the puppets than the performance side of things. I can also see that hopefully School of Puppetry will be more and more my ‘fallback’ passive income, whilst I can get out there in the real world with my shadows.

And finally, after last year’s changeup and move of the tutorials to SOP, I have a plan in place for Puppets in Melbourne. I didn’t have one before now. … But….

This means starting over. Completely. It means cleaning house of every material that I have, minus my shadow puppet stuff. (I have things lying around from projects I was supposed to do several years ago) It means changing completely how I make the puppets and what I use, in order to make them more durable and cheaper. I may even have to outsource some parts of it to make it faster/cheaper to make them. I need to create or recreate patterns in order to make different sizes of puppets. I will most definitely need to redesign my site to fit in with the new themes and styles and presentation of what I’m selling (I can literally hear everyone groan at that! What’s this, the fifth redesign of PIM?)  I need to source packaging and obtain new business cards with updated info… And about 50 other little things to do and source and make.

Before you panic: everything will remain on sale on the site while I do the changeover. I can imagine this feat of work will take me at least a year, based on how long it’s taking me to do all my other things.

I will be posting more about what the changes will be, as I’m very excited about a few of them. They retain the challenge of making ‘proper’ shadow puppets (aka, not toys), whilst appealing to those out there who might not necessarily like or have thought of using, shadow puppets at all.

Kukcrafters has turned out to be more worthy of the $15 attendance fee than I originally thought. I just wanted to find a group of people who wanted to share the experience of making stuff. After checking out the market - and buying my own draw-your-own-lampshade - we all went and had afternoon tea together. There I finally got to chat with the others, discover that despite the age difference the members are just as frightened of taking the financial dive into artistry and just as busy figuring out how to make their work profitable. To all those who were there: thank you for the enlightening day, the conversation, and the advice (particularly Bambi). I hope by the end of next year you’ve all come to my first - proper - market day… and bought something!!

I won’t ever catch up on the things I’m supposed to be doing. This much is obvious, especially if you’re a regular reader here. I’m years behind in my emails; about 1000+ entries behind in my blog reading; about 5 or 10 puppets behind in my building; a pattern or two behind in my SOP stuff; still need to fix up sections of this blog; not to mention all the other things I’m supposed to be doing.

And of course, in juggling all these things, I’ve managed to land myself some good (more) work-from-home hours from my friends David and Fiona. You may remember I did some work for them last year (not to mention the other two times in previous years!) and once again I’ve been thrown into the - not so - deep end of a new job and figuring out what I need to do. It’s a slow slog through the work, and I’ve been spending most of the weekend going through it all to meet a Monday deadline.

Sadly, I have been very very bad at not being able to finish an ebook for SOP; I’m literally a bit of editing and one puppet example away from being done… er, and some illustrations I’m waiting on. I really want to get it finished, and fortunately for this new job I can work whatever hours I need. I’m hoping once I get through to the other side of Monday I can rearrange my hours so I do a little in the morning and then the rest of the day on the pupppets/ebook.

… Did I mention I also have to rewrite and rework about 10 free tutorials for SOP which are mentioned in the ebook and haven’t yet migrated over to the new site? … Sigh… What I wouldn’t give for a pause button!

On Saturday I did something that was pretty amazing. I got together with some people for the second ‘KUK crafters’ day. The idea of KUKcrafters is that a group of people get together on a regular basis - online or off - to make crafts. You don’t have to be an artist to turn up, or even a project to work on, you just have to be enthusiastic and feeling creative. (More pics of the day can be found here)

I got introduced to the whole thing by random/Twitter. Fiona, my ex/often-employer, knew about KUKcrafters and suggested I come along. It was right up my alley, because as regular readers know: there’s just nothing like that for puppet makers in Melbourne. I viewed it as my opportunity to have a puppet making day with other creative people.

The day started off pretty bad, as I was given the wrong location info (I eventually found everyone, thank goodness for nice people who decide to walk you to the right building), but the rest of it was great.

I sat down and began work reconstructing parts of a giant turtle shadow puppet that I had made for a commission a while back. I want to put photos on my website of the puppets, but never had the chance for some decent shots. But I did have part of a puppet that got screwed up (minutely) by the laminating machine. It’s ideal for fixing up for some promo shots, but I’ve not had the chance to sit down and do it. So I spent a lot of time working on that, but didn’t manage to complete it. All I need to do is string it though.

The other thing I did was work on a brand new shadow puppet to sell. I definitely haven’t completed that one, although I must say that it’s looking very good. I’m using Japanese papers for the base and the colours/patterns are perfect for the character I’m working on. It is an extension of the ‘Flying Dragon‘ series, and it’s great to do something new.

While I was there there was plenty going on. Apparently 18 people turned up for the first KUKcrafters day, but there were about 10 or so this time around. There was button artwork (on canvas) going on from @DoTheWoo; sewing of clothing; a couple of people working on books and web designs; doodles on pillowcases from @joidesign; a discussion on the merits of selling photograph books online to raise money for the recent Queensland floods from @Conscious_me and @digital_kulcha … plus a table full of art/design books for inspiration, coffee/tea and biscuits, and music on CD. (In case you can’t tell, most of us are followers on Twitter, or friends of followers on Twitter) The event also took place at a local arts centre/nunnery (yeah, don’t ask me how that works) which has a Saturday fresh food market.

The whole crafting session was 5 hours - although less for me since I got there late - and though I didn’t chat much with other people, it was great to sit down and work on some shadow puppets without the distraction of the TV/fridge/microwave/phone/etc. Fiona also came along - extremely late - and we chatted about the things we’re up to and afterwards herself, @poppykat and I went for a drink and chat.

All in all, a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon! I’m already looking forward to the next sessions. There’s been discussion of a group curated online shop, a group stall at the centre’s market, field trips to galleries, and other fun things. My only pity is that KUKcrafters only meets once a month