Day one and construction begins.
Dream Carnival is an organization that consists of one... Me!
I've been painting, drawing, sculpting and composing from an early age but it never really made an impact. I wanted to get my work some attention so the pieces I made got bigger and bigger.
During the rounds at Halloween, I realized that this would be an ideal way to show off artwork so I began to put more effort into my costumes.
Every year they got bigger and bigger until they had outgrown the streets they were paraded on.
One year I heard of a festival parade in The city where their moto was 'Don't spectate, Participate' so I went along to see what was happening. There were great big scarry monsters and the like with loads of children in their halloween outfits, dancing down the street behind a samba band. The atmosphere was electric and that latin rhythim could not be resisted. Your feet would start to move and you were wafting down the road with the crowd. Even if your legs began to ache you just couldn't stop moving. At the end of the route, the crowd would gather into a courtyard and fireworks would scream into the sky and dazel round the full moon, shinning brightly behind them.
The next year, I made one of my costumes. Too small to be seen in a big crowd but too big to trick or treat. I followed the crowd as I did before and vowed to do the same next year. Halloween was only the opening. I set my sights on St. Patrick's Festival parade. My proposal was too over the top for an in-exsperienced artist so their team sent me down a path to the 'Waterford Spraoi' team. I spent a week or two with them and learned how to make floats and build costumes with different types if materials. The lads down in the old shed were all mad and I had a great time. I made two rather good alligator outfits for one of the pieces. The performers never turned up so I ended up performing in it the night of the parade. I had such a good time, even though my feet were blistered and sore from standing still at a table working for the past two weeks.
When I got home, I dragged out every penny I had saved and went out to buy all the material I had used in Waterford. I spent the rest of the summer building a 20ft high dragon called 'Overture' that I performed with in the Halloween parade that year.
She was my first proper carnival puppet. I went on to build large puppets for St.Patrick's festival and then the Greystones arts festival. During those times, I began to get phone calls to build pieces for special events like charity balls and promotional stints. I haven't built allot but I know one thing to put any wanna be's off building and that is... unless you have the facility, the extra cash and a stomach for very hard back breaking and repetative strain injury followed by panic when the scissors go missing and the parade starts in three minutes.... this is probably not for you. Stay tuned for more ideas and rantings
