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!!