Those of you who have been following the story of Puppets in Melbourne over the past year and a half will know that I’ve been splitting my site in two: putting shadow puppet content on the original PIM site, and tutorials and non-shadow puppet stuff on the new School of Puppetry site. Those who’ve been following the news of the last 6 months or so will have some idea that new shadow puppet products will be forthcoming, but more than that will represent a huge shift in how I present my work. I’ve been hinting at a deeper shift than is immediately obvious. Over the coming days, weeks and months as I prepare to reveal the first new shadow puppet and the inner workings of my presentation at the upcoming Summit, I will be explaining this shift in further detail.

However, before I launch into explanations of where it’s all going, I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight something which may get lost in the mix:

Puppets in Melbourne once would never stray far from anything puppetry, outside of discussion of my personal experiences or daily activities. Even then, it would remain somewhat puppetry related. Much of the upcoming changes will require discussion of many topics outside of puppetry, as they are the basis for many of my new shadow puppet characters. Some people may find this interesting and continue reading, others may not. Some may find it too unrelated to the art of puppetry, some may not. Some may find it even challenges their ideas about the world around them, some may not.

More than that, most people I suspect are subscribed readers purely because of the content for School of Puppetry, and the free information contained therein. In which case, the experimentation of shadow puppetry may be somewhat interesting; but the upcoming accompanying commentary on other topics will undoubtedly lose me those who just want free puppetry info.

Do not panic: Puppets in Melbourne will always provide a combined RSS/subscription whereby you get updates from both sites. But from now on, subscribers will see a link (at the bottom of each post in your RSS subscriber or similar reader) which will allow you to subscribe to School-of-Puppetry-updates-only, if you prefer. If you find that any of the new PIM content is not to your liking - although I hope you all read the first few posts and make up your minds from there - then feel free to update your subscriptions. To begin with this SOP-only subscription won’t be openly advertised outside of the link for current subscribers. (One can always simply subscribe to the SOP twitter or Facebook page, which doesn’t include PIM updates anyway and has the added advantage of including backdated migrations of content which don’t appear in RSS feeds)

Just so you know what’s coming, here’s a little preview: an artist’s philosophical statement where I explain the reasoning behind the new designs; a step-by-step trip through researching and developing my presentation at the Summit (see link above); finalisation and advertisement of the first new shadow puppet; learning the art of tambour embroidery which is mainly just me trying something new; research and development for more shadow puppets and other related products; and yes, the introduction of discussion of science and other non-puppetry topics which will relate to my new works. It won’t be aggressive discussion, but explorative…. so please just give it a shot before changing over to the new subscription.

If you’re completely uninterested in giving it a go however, then the SOP only subscription is here.