Retired to California
Here are two of my puppets or more correctly, marionettes. A marionette has strings which are pulled to induce actions.
The smaller marionette is a Nat, a Burmese spirit and the larger is a Commissioner, I guess we could call him a politician. The Nat has some astrological markings on his stomach. Those are what drew me to him as well as his perky moustache. It’s odd to see the buck teeth on the Commissioner. During my childhood it was common to see Asians portrayed with buck teeth in cartoons. Strange to see that the Asians themselves did this. Maybe the comissioner was untrustworthy.
I have these and my monk marionette sitting in my library in a bay window. I used to sit there myself on a chilly day and soak up the sun streaming in the window. Now I share the window seat with them. Once the marionettes are arranged, it’s not easy to get them back into position.
They lie against some pillows that are made from Turkish killims. I bought these in a Turkish shop in Hoboken, NJ when I was visiting my daughter. They were made by the Turkish family who ran the shop. I like knowing that somewhere near Trabizon a family sewed these hoping to sell them to someone like me.
The white balance of the above photo is off and I couldn’t get the colors the way I wanted to not even in Camera Raw. At the same time I shot the above marionettes, I shot the monk marionette in the photo below. He is sitting on the other side of the window seat. His colors are true. What a difference the angle of light makes. Or perhaps it is the reflection of his red robes.
An Expression of Inner Peace