Part of the Asheville Puppetry Alliance
We’ve got 2 events in May (LEAF, Justice for Kids), 4 in June (Marshall Mermaid Parade, Honey Fest, Toe Down, Firefly Gathering), 3 in July (Chimney Rock State Park, Rising Appalachia, LEAF on the River), and more beyond that. But we have to move April 15 and we don’t know where!
Calling on our community for help! See this page for the particulars.
Free or super cheap. 600+ square feet. We know its a unicorn. But so are we!
Tomorrow (Sunday, Feb. 19) is the Asheville Mardi Gras parade! Weather looks perfect – sunny and 60 degrees. Starts at 3:05 pm, hope you will come watch on the south slope, map below. Going to be FUNGITASTIC!
If you are reading this post parade – go here to learn more about seed balls, what the heck panspermia is, and other fascinating things.
Do puppets know how to create a pollinator friendly habitat? Heck yeah!
We made a video last summer and it is now ready to view online! Based on Asheville Greenworks’ Native Pollinator Garden Certification program, this 9 minute how-to video was shot in gardens around Asheville, including the Lucy Herring Elementary School Peace Garden.
We were first inspired to do this in 2021 by Phyllis Stiles of Bee City USA. She invited us to bring big puppets to a pollinator festival in the River Arts District. There we learned about the Greenworks’ certification program. Four of us have gone on to get our own gardens certified.
The video features puppets big and small, including Silvi the Frog, Sammy the Snake, Granny Dirt, the Tree Hugger and more. They demonstrate the eight elements that make a garden a place where bees and other pollinators feel at home. We hope it will inspire Ashevillians of all ages to become dedicated pollinator guardians like us.
Funded in part by the West Asheville Garden Stroll. Thank you WAGS and Collective Projects for your support!
We knew it was coming, now we have a date. We’ve got to move out of Jubilee in April. Dang it! It’s been a wonderful year and half there. We love being downstairs from this social justice driven, creative church, and right next door to the beautiful folks at JAMS (Jubilee Alternative Micro Shelter).
But life is change. So we are figuring out how to do that. If you have ideas about a place or resources that can help, please reach out at Streetcreaturepuppets@gmail.com. This page gives a summary of what we are looking for.
We are asking the universe and our community to help us find a place we can root and grow.
We are also getting ready for Mardi Gras! Save the date February 19th! Going to be fungi-fantastically out of this world.
We love the folks at Firefly Gathering and when they asked for our help with decor on their winter fundraiser, we said yes. Held at the historic and haunted Masonic Hall, we brought lanterns and puppets to lend more magic to the occasion. Wonderful music and a full house. Looking forward to parading with these folks on the land next summer!
We were invited to do an evening of walkabouts at the Marquee Gallery in the River Arts District. We brought out a wide selection of critters for the occasion and enjoyed spreading our Halloween love around.
We also got to help create an amazing Halloween House on Vermont Ave in West Asheville. This street is known for being a big trick or treat destination. We joined Jill and Lauren to create the Stranger Things House and it was a blast. People loved it and were lined up at the door all night on Halloween. Bam Booey made an appearance too!
The Sirkus came back to town and it was bigger and better than ever. Several Street Creatures and other freaky folk got to carry the beautiful white dragon in a procession at the beginning and end of the show. Julie led the way with her new phoenix puppet. The crowd loved our angelic monster.
The whole event is a tremendous love letter to the city and we hope it will continue to grow and thrive. Thank you Jim Genero and team!
We had a wonderful time at the 50th LEAF Fest! It was the first full size festival since the pandemic started. 6k people enjoying great weather and great music. We did our usual lantern workshop and the lantern parade on Friday, with more kids and a bigger parade than ever before! Having them one after the other worked well with the new upcycled water bottle design.
On Saturday they brought back the People’s Parade! Yay, so fun to be wending our way through the campus, right behind the fab Zabumba band and dancers. Here are some photos.
We were invited to be part of a unique performance downtown in a collaboration with poet Tiffani Narron. It was one of several performances and temporary installations created for the Art in the Heart, a city funded program to envision Pack Square as a place that better reflects Asheville’s diverse community. It was a small procession around the perimeter of the square. We circled the area several times, both in the daytime, wearing black and carrying masks, then at night carrying lanterns. Our intention was to hold space for grief and bridge the painful past (a desecrated native burial ground, a market for enslaved people, a recently dismantled confederate monument) with the present. Ultimately we wanted to help call in a better future, to create a shared space that honors equity and promotes collective wellbeing. It was intense holding a sacred intention like that while traveling through the chaos of a leaf season Saturday night downtown: religious people on bullhorns, football fans screaming, buskers, shoppers, sirens, dogs…
We were a small but powerful seed, moving energy.
Another awesome puppet adventure! On a perfect September day we brought our ten 10 foot tall Trailblazer puppets to the streets of Asheville as part of the biggest Blue Ridge Pride fest yet. The puppets are figures representing 10 local leaders going back 50 years. We celebrated their diverse work in making the community stronger with a rainbow of fabric, bling and a lot of love.
Meka Bunch was our fearless and creative leader of this project. We got wonderful support from Amanda Wray of the UNCA LGBTQ+ Oral History Archive, and from Tina White and the staff at Blue Ridge Pride. #lovewins
Street Creature Puppet Collective 