I made a puppet today. My favourite networking group,?Drive, invited Jo Bryant from The Hands On Company to run a workshop on business values with a difference – she brought along a bag of furry friends.
Jo uses puppets to help people think through things and we all got to make our own little monster to take home as a business cheerleader.
I loved Jo’s workshop. She said lots of tthought-provokingthings which I’m hoping to blog about in the coming days. But I confess I found the puppet making difficult because it was out of my comfort zone. I would love to be creative. I’ve always imagined how amazing it would be to be able to paint or draw or write music. Alas my efforts are somewhat below par.
Jo Bryant with one of her creations.Jo had created a range of puppet bodies with heads and arms and then we had a selection of materials to accessorize them with from eyes to tails. I am easily awed by other people’s creativity. Suddenly people were creating outfits, one person turned theirs into a spider. I felt very out of place.
And then I realised that we had all started from a fairly level playing field. None of us, as far as I’m aware, had made a puppet before. The sewing level needed was basic because the fur hides all the stitches. Your puppet could be whatever you wanted with a little imagination.
One of my friends once said to me: “If you have a go, you’ve got something. If you don’t try, you have nothing.”
Today, I made a puppet and he is there to remind me of the importance of finding time to be creative and step out of my comfort zone.
- Rachel Extance?is a communications consultant. She uses stories to help businesses get their message across.
