Street Roots • July 15-21,2016
News
Page 8
Street Roots • July 15-21,2016
News
Page 9
Oklahoma City’s homeless
puppeteer finds solace
in marionettes he
creates from trash
fro»* on oW
of stoppers.
BY RANYA O'CONNOR
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Red button foun
’ on ttoe street
t r*op found
+toe trasto
'Vastoöottos found
\n ttoe dumpster ’
* Baby boots
from Goodw\U
t Northwest 23rd Street and
Pennsylvania Avenue, Oklahoma
City’s very own puppeteer, Jack
Howell, is likely busking on the sidewalk
with his handmade marionettes. Often
out with his eccentric puppets, Jack
performs for anyone willing to spare a
minute to enjoy the show.
Jack started making puppets a year
ago after he and his wife separated.
“I had a bunch of time left over after
the old lady left with the kids. I was
trying to get over her.... My wife's
name was Maranelle, and I started to
Google her name one day. But in the
middle of doing so, I thought, ‘Nah, I
shouldn’t do that’ I looked, and
‘marionettes’ had popped up on the
screen. And I thought, ‘I can do that.
That’s cool.’”
Jack uses his current experience with
homelessness, which followed the split
with his wife, as artistic inspiration. He
makes all of his dolls out of discarded
and abandoned materials that he finds
on the streets of Oklahoma City. Since
starting, Jack has made over 30 puppets.
But with being on the streets, more
than half have been lost, stolen, or
damaged along the way. But Jack
doesn’t let that stop him. “I’m always
working on a new one. Before I’ve
finished one, I’ve got another one
a
started.”
Jack finds inspiration for his dolls in
overlooked knickknacks.
“I find a lot of stuff in the garbage and
in dumpsters around Oklahoma City. If I
want or need something specific, I’ll go
to Goodwill or thrift stores. I get a lot of
hair for my dolls in the trash behind a
wig store.” You can find everything from
vegetables to dominoes to dog chew
toys incorporated into the designs of
Jack’s puppets.
One of Jack’s puppets is Abraham
Lincoln.
“I found an old shower mirror in the
trash and thought, ‘This could be the
rim of Abraham Lincoln’s hat’ So I just
went from there,” he said. But Jack put
his own spin on the president, giving
him drum sticks and a drum kit that he
likes to play in Jack’s puppet band. Also
in Jack’s puppet band is a rocker
grandpa who strums a toy guitar and a
skeleton on lead vocals.
Each of Jack’s puppets has a specific
purpose and motion to accommodate its
existence for entertainment His
puppets have no limits to their abilities
from a rabid raccoon that gnaws on a
rubber chicken leg to a puppy dog that
can hike its leg up and spray real water
onto a fire hydrant “They all have their
own stuff that they do that’s unique.
And there’s a little bit of me in all of
them.”
Jack’s life and the people he
encounters also play a role in his
creative process. He has one puppet
modeled after a cashier from Wal-Mart
that he saw, whose style Jack admired.
The gentleman has a cane and an eye
patch, which Jack found to be “groovy.”
Jack made a puppet of him and plans to
surprise him with it as a gift in the
future.
While Jack had never done
puppeteering, he has dabbled in art for.
most of his life.
“Painting and drawing. I go through
phases,” he said. “I was really into
melting vinyl records and making them
into bowls, flowers, etc., for a period of
time. I once even melted them to myself
and made a life-size statue of Auguste
Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’“
But unlike Jack’s former art
endeavors, he doesn’t seem to think this
one is just a phase.
“This is more than just art for me. I
phased out of art projects in the past,
but this one is different,” he said.
For Jack, his marionettes bring
purpose back into his life after his
separation and losing his kids.
“What would I do with my life without
this? Sit out in the sun and bake all day?
I find meaning in this... Building them is
an escape. Sometimes I don t want them
to be done because then it’s over with.”
Without his wife and kids in his life
anymore, Jack sometimes feels unsure
about the future. He knows he wants to
get back in housing and find steady
employment. He used to work
construction and at a convenience store.
Sometimes Jack worries that his kids
are embarrassed by his new hobby.
“No one’s saying, ‘Man, my dad’s the
puppet dude at 23rd and Penn!’ I’d
rather have my children back in my life.
I’d probably give (the puppets) all to my
kids and tell them to go play with them
and be done.”
But until that day, Jack is certain that
nothing will stop him from creating
puppets.
“I’ll die if I stop,” he said. “That’s
what I keep telling myself. I won’t let
anybody talk me out of doing this.
People like them. 1 like them. There
ain’t nothing wrong with that, is there?”
And Jack isn’t joking when he says
that nothing can stop his passion. Jack
recently served a short period of time in
county jail and continued to make
puppets to perform for his fellow
inmates.
“I made the puppets in jail out of
soap and paper that I mixed together,”
he said. “I made little outfits for them by
ripping up fabric from our jumpsuits.
They were little inmates too.” It wasn’t
until his puppets were confiscated as
contraband that he had to stop.
While Jack doesn’t think anything
serious will ever come from his
performances, he does think it would be
fun to create an entire stage show with
his puppets. Unlike other major cities,
Oklahoma City doesn’t have a very
vibrant busking scene. Busking is when
people perform for donations in public
spaces. It is common in cities like New
York, Los Angeles and Portland. Jack is
one of the few street performers in OKC
to experiment with alternative forms of
entertainment
While Jack receives tips for his
performances, that has never been the
main motive for his act
“I do it to keep my mind busy. To
keep me sane or insane, either way,”
Jack joked. “I never ask nobody for
anything. I just like the smiles on the
kids’ faces. It makes me laugh as much
as them.”
Courtesy of INSP.ngo / The Curbside
Chronicle