What started as a fun prototype over the summer transformed into a staple program for the nonprofit Chocolate Church Arts Center by incorporating puppets into its art programs and events.

Over the past several months, the program has birthed nearly 10 puppets unique to Bath, which were made alongside the mask-making for the monster garden last summer, according to CCAC Art Director Jeremy Easton. An endless amount of creativity goes into making puppets, from marionettes to object theater — a practice where a performer can turn any object into a puppet to create a story with characters — or huge wearable puppets that can be part of a costume like Big Bird on “Sesame Street.”

The CCAC made a small prototype of puppets over the summer.

Easton equates the CCAC’s community art space and puppet lab to a public library, which provides a free space to craft and create. People of all skill levels can use the community art space to work on projects for personal or professional use. Easton, an experienced puppet maker, is on hand during community hours at the CCAC to teach basic skills, such as using a sewing machine.

One of the wearable puppets seen during the Waterfront Puppet Parade during the 2024 summer in Bath. Courtesy of the Chocolate Church Arts Center

“There are a lot of different types of visual arts happening here, and the puppetry component is the one I am developing the slowest right now,” Easton said. “It’s a niche art form.”

Easton said that anything inanimate being animated to make it feel like the object is alive is considered a puppet and thinks the act of creation makes someone understand the act of being alive.

“I think when we are able to create something, like a puppet, that has a feeling of having a life of its own, it makes us understand things about ourselves,” Easton said.

Community puppets can be made for performances at the CCAC, such as the New Orleans-style Haunted Ragtime Halloween and Swing Dance show this past Halloween. Easton created a giant mouse and bat-like creature for the event and dreams of puppetry-specific projects the nonprofit will be housing next year in two parts.

“We are certainly not the only place doing a program like this, but it is unique to have a community art studio,” Easton said. “Everything is free, so all the art supplies you are seeing around you are here for anyone to use.”

Over the summer, the CCAC held a monster garden where people could make something related to monsters. Easton had moved to the area recently and couldn’t say if there was already a trend of puppet-making before the community art and puppet lab, but the CCAC is a closer option than Mayo Street Arts in Portland, which Easton referred to as a hub for puppetry in the region.

The community art and puppet lab are one and the same. The space is for anyone who wants to pursue any type of visual art or learn a skill set in puppet making or visual art.

One of the handmade masks and costumes seen at the Waterfront Puppet Parade in Bath during the 2024 summer. Courtesy of the Chocolate Church Arts Center

“The vision and the future I think of [for] the Chocolate Church [Arts Center] definitely encompasses free, accessible and vibrant community programming that has this kind of art fusion and is bringing people into the door,” Easton said.

One example is a Bath community member coming in to build a puppet with her friends to work on sketches for a music festival she will attend next summer.

There is also a musical puppet group from Massachusetts that will be residents of CCAC in January 2025 and will be developing the elements of puppets and crankie to scroll through multiple scenes for their shows. (Crankie is a form of storytelling that uses a paper scroll of different scenes in a box-like contraption with a crank to move the scroll.)

In the coming year, Easton will employ a performance-based model she has used before in puppetry involving indoor and outdoor performative and spectacle-heavy visual art and performance fusion work. Easton said the plans for visual arts performance are in the early stages. Under Easton’s art direction, community members will create dance and music pieces with large-scale puppetry incorporated into them.

The planned performance could collaborate with local musicians, visual artists and performers of all ages to make immersive spaces for Bath residents.

“If somebody can think of it, and we can figure out how to make it, then it will exist,” Easton said. “And I think almost anything you can dream up, you can figure out how to make.”

The Waterfront Puppet Parade, co-produced by Main Street Bath, is one example of incorporating puppetry, dance and live music into an inherently community-based art form.

Bath residents can use the community art center and puppet lab from 2-5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Wednesdays for adults only to use for their visual arts practice. Residents can schedule an alternative time by contacting Easton at the CCAC at jeremy.eaton@chocolatechurch.com or 442-8455.