On March 9th, 2006 I launched Puppetslam.com, a website that cataloged, connected, supported, and generated awareness for adult evenings of short-form puppetry and what would evolve into the Puppet Slam Network over the next decade.
Puppetslam.com fostered connections in the growing field of independently produced puppet cabarets, so that puppet artists could know where they could perform, venues could find puppet artists, and audiences could enjoy an intimate, tactile, and compelling form of entertainment.
The website became a searchable database of 80 slams in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Denmark, and Australia.
I created the site on iWeb in 2006 and converted it to the Blogger in 2011.
The Puppet Slam Network ran for just over a decade until 2016 and the community continues to grow, evolve, and reinvent itself.
The Blogger version of the website remains in tact as an archive of Puppet Slam Network activity.
The Heather Henson Foundation has continued to support individual puppet slams beyond the run of the Puppet Slam Network.
On the website, I published a 24 interviews with slam artists and curators.
There were also posts with practical information on organizing slams.
GRANTS
In addition to the website and its content, I created an evaluation process and distributed 237 grants totaling $475,000 over 10 cycles.
CALENDARS
Starting in 2010, I distributed information on upcoming slams to our mailing list that often included upwards of 100 upcoming events.
Ibex Puppetry is an entertainment company dedicated to promoting the fine art of puppetry in all of its mediums. Founded in 2000 and receiving multiple UNIMA (Union Internationale de la Marionette) awards, Ibex Puppetry supports puppet art in the mediums of film, stage, gallery exhibits, workshops and artist presentations.