Puppets in Prague

A slight diversion into different material – wood. Loyal followers will recall that I have made marionettes in the past at the Prague workshop of Mirek Tretnjar. This spring I went back to Prague to make a family puppet theatre and the puppets and scenery for a production of the Snow Queen.

Family theatres are a tradition in the Czechia (remember the Sound of Music and the Lonely Goatherd, yes I know not Czechia). Above is an example of a family theatre.

The workshop took us through the marionette carving, scenery painting, theatre painting, Marionette dressing and using the marionettes to tell our story. Above is a photo of the workshop with everyone working.

It was a fantastic group of talented people and I negotiated a jewellery commission which I’m so looking forward to making.

Starting with four blocks of wood, I carved the heads of my four puppets for a show based on the Snow Queen. Other blocks were carved for the hands, shoes and legs. Everything was then painted and clothes made. Mirek Trejtnar, the workshop leader, assembled the puppets and they were ready for the theatre. Lots of people helped and advised, including Marcella, Vaclav and Sota.

For some reason I can’t upload any puppet photos, above is a photo of some of the puppet artists at leisure.

It took a week to get the puppets almost complete. We then moved on to making the theatre. Dora and Svetlana helped plan and develop the performance. I was really pleased with the final family-story telling performance that we devised. I’m looking forward to sharing it with my grandchildren for their fourth birthday. Hopefully they will enjoy doing their own performances soon.

iron lintel casting

The day dawned bright and by lunchtime the mould was finally finished; Eden had mended the furnace and the ‘bull ladle’ was also fixed; the fork lift was in place to take the weight of the ladle; Michael had cracked the scrap iron (thanks Michael) and weighed the bags of coke and iron. Eden must have laid the bed of coke in the furnace when I was working on the mould indoors; the air blowers and gas tanks were in place. It was decided by the tech team to go ahead with the pour.

The furnace was lit and the air blower turned on to force the temperature up to melting point; the gas blower was turned on to the ‘bull ladle’ to heat it up ready to receive the molten iron when the furnace was tapped.

The photo above shows Michael adding a charge of coke and scrap iron to the top of the furnace. As the iron scrap heats it becomes molten and drops to the bottom of the furnace. When enough iron for the pour (over 65kg) is molten at the bottom of the furnace the bung is broken so the iron can run into the ‘ladle/crucible’.

The weight of the iron is taken by the fork lift and Michael and George manoeuvred the bull ladle into position and tipped it to pour the molten iron into the mould. There was a delay when the fork lift wouldn’t start and an alternative lifting device was tried before reverting to the fork lift.

 

Towards the end of the pour the bull ladle got caught in some way and the pour was aborted. The mould was showing metal through the air vents, so the general view was that the pour could be complete. The team have reviewed the equipment and made safety alterations since.

The metal needed to cool before I could peek inside, so I left it for the weekend. On Monday I removed the mould pieces to reveal an iron lintel, yeah

 

Thanks to Scottish Sculpture Workshop tech team and George Beasley.