Feathers flew in the normally pristine Trisolini Gallery during the weeks leading up to Halloween.
Honey for the Heart transformed the art gallery, located on the fourth floor of Baker Center, into a workshop to create puppets for the annual Halloween parade. When the group marches in the Oct. 29 parade, it will be its fifth year taking part in the festivity.
Honey for the Heart is an organization that works with Athens residents and Ohio University students to make art and promote creativity. They use recycled materials donated from Ohio University Campus Recycling and other outlets to make their art. Residents of Athens volunteer to make the puppets come to life in the parade.
Patty Mitchell, the director of Honey for the Heart, said she brought the puppets to Athens after seeing something similar in Minneapolis and she wanted the puppets to add to the Halloween celebration.
“We wanted to lift up Halloween in Athens a little bit,” Mitchell said. “I thought, ‘Our town needs these here.’ ”
For most of the years, Mitchell said there has been a theme the puppets adhere to, such as the Chinese elements and magical creatures. This year’s theme is birds.
“This year, we are going really simple with the basic concept of birds, but of course that can go in all kinds of different directions,” she said.
Mitchell is looking for “danceable” puppets with a lot of movement, she said. People have used different materials — cardboard, fabric, sequins and paper mache — to create the birds. Mitchell said one person used a pool noodle for the neck of an ostrich.
“I think there is something really strong about coming up with a simple idea, bringing simple materials into the mix and then using creativity to expand on those,” Mitchell said. “It’s like we can think about birds differently. We can make a big, giant egg and have somebody’s legs sticking out of it and walking down the street. There’s a lot of ways to interpret birds. They could be huge birds, or they could be little, tiny birds.”
Margaret Gustafan, a Nelsonville resident and artist, said sometimes people come in and think they cannot make art.
“Everyone can make art,” Gustafan said. “You can put a dot on a piece of paper, and if you put enough of them, it becomes art. Absolutely anyone can do it. You just have to sit down and spend a little time on it."
The atypical aspect of Honey for the Heart, according to Gustafan, is the creativity that comes from different people creating the art.
“We’re making these huge puppets,” she said. “There’s not just one person doing it. There’s layers and layers of material and people working on it. I have a certain way I cut fabric and make dots, but other people make things differently.”
MacKenzie Brooks, a freshman studying business pre-law, helped make puppets with her Learning Community. She decided to sew beads to the eye of a multi-colored bird head because she knows how to sew, she said.
“I had no idea what this was until we got here,” Brooks said. “It’s a more fun community service project.”
Michele Ward, a first-year master’s student studying ecology and evolutionary biology, cut out paper feathers for different sections of the bird. Ward said she helped as part of her animal plasticity class where students are learning to adapt to new environments.
“It breaks up the monotony of graduate classes,” Ward said. “It’s a good way to get the mind off of other things and be creative. It’s relaxing.”
Mitchell said she tends to make puppets that are a little more obscure, but there will also be birds that look realistic.
“So we’ll have some birds that are completely, totally funked out, and you’ve never seen anything like it before, to others where it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s an indigo bunting,’ ” she said.
Mitchell said she looks forward to marching in the parade and watching the people react to the puppets. She described the experience as a “high.”
“Watching people on the street is a blast,” Mitchell said. “It’s super fun to be in the parade, and it’s super fun for the people who watch it.”
The puppets have gotten recognition from Athens Mayor Steve Patterson and the Athens County Visitor’s Bureau, Mitchell said.
“It’s evidence of our culture,” she said. “It’s visual evidence of who we are in Athens, and it’s being celebrated.”
