Today we’d like to introduce you to Gordon Smuder.
Hi Gordon, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My parents could be identified as a significant contributing factor to my creative bent. My dad got me interested in making things when he built a marionette (string puppet) for me. That was when I realized that things could be made and not just purchased. Dad’s example got me VERY interested in learning how to build things. The same goes for my mom, who ran a catering business all through my teen years. Understanding that you could MAKE a wedding cake and that they didn’t just appear magically out of nowhere truly illustrated to me that one could make a career out of making things.
Over the years, I learned how to work with wood and plastics and paper and resins and foam and all manner of materials. And in doing so, I fell into a 25-year career in Special Effects. Mostly prop and model building for advertising. A vocation that made use of everything I knew and taught me many more skills.
It also taught me to despise advertising. But that’s a different story.
Upon retiring from a career rooted in a quickly dwindling volume of work (here come the computers!), I dove straight into the high-stakes, high-reward industry of puppetry.
That’s right, puppetry.
Now I do puppets. You know, like Jim Henson. Everybody knows Jim Henson, right?
In the year 2000, I visited my first Puppetry Festival in Los Angeles, CA. The experience was an epiphany. I had been “into” puppetry for a very long time…most of my life, actually. Starting with that wooden marionette, my dad had built for me back in the 1970s.
It was really eye-opening to see and meet and talk with people who actually made their livelihoods creating and performing puppets.
One of the high-profile folks I met was a gentleman named Jerry Juhl. Jerry was the Head Writer for The Muppets. And he was also a Minnesota native. We hit it off and kept in touch over the next few years until his passing in 2005 from cancer.
Jerry was definitely a mentor. Not only to me, but to a staggeringly large number of people. Because that was who he was. He always had time to help you out. To find a solution to your writer’s problem. And he would do it not by telling you what to do, but by suggesting and questioning and getting you to realize the answer on your own. Rather genius, honestly.
After Jerry died, I realized that there really wasn’t going to be a moment when somebody walked up to me on the street and just offered me a job as a puppeteer.
If I wanted to do that kind of work, I’d have to make it myself.
Which led me (along with encouragement from my wife Jennifer Menken) to creating my puppet business, The Puppet Forge. It also led me to partner with indie filmmaker Michael Heagle to produce an all-puppet monster sitcom for grown-ups called Transylvania Television. A show which can be seen even now on Tubi.tv and Seeka.tv
My recent activity has been centered mostly on making puppets and selling them. One of my newest offerings, conceived by my wife Jennifer, is something I call Specious Species Taxidermy. It’s goofy, puppet-styled faux taxidermy trophies that are so popular I can’t currently keep up with demand. Who knew people wanted puppets that didn’t actually “puppet”? Jennifer, that’s who.
I’m looking forward to 2023. We’ll be doing Oddities & Curiosities Expos around the mid-west and I’ll be attending the National Puppetry Festival in July. We also help run the Puppetry activity track at GEN CON in Indianapolis. Come on out and look for us!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
I cannot imagine that starting one’s own business, particularly in the Arts, is EVER a “smooth road”. Like any business, you need to find your market. And finding a market for high-quality, non-toy puppets (designed for film, video, and internet use by grown-ups) is a challenge from the word “go”.
We’ve done a lot of experimentation. Online sales, vending at craft shows, comic book conventions, taking on commissions, and now doing more focused events like Oddities & Curiosities Expo, the National Puppetry Festival, and GEN CON.
Experimentation requires time and patience and a willingness to identify not-so-successful outcomes and adjust your approach.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m addicted to building things. As a career, that has manifested itself in making television-quality puppets…like Muppets, only with my own designs and style applied to the making. I make and perform puppets for the camera. Mostly make.
As for what I’m most proud of, it got to be the creation of our television show Transylvania Television. We created, financed, produced, and got it on the air. That’s no small feat. There are so many people who “have a great idea for a show”, but never actually accomplish it. But we did. And by “we” I mean everybody involved with the production…because they were all necessary to its success. Also on my “proud of” list is the fact that everybody involved would do it again if asked. That makes me very happy.
Recently, I’ve become known for the puppet-styled sculptures I make. I call them “Specious Species Taxidermy” and they aren’t actually puppets at all. They’re static wall art.
I started making them because, while people enjoy the look of the puppets I make, not everybody wants to perform a puppet. And a puppet requires that you perform it in order to “be” a puppet. It’s kinda part of the definition! Otherwise, it’s just an empty plush toy.
To appeal to that segment of the market (the folks who don’t want to perform but still like the look of my work), I started making art sculptures.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
My personal intrinsic dull-ness, probably? As far as life goes, I’m not a very creative guy about it. I like vanilla. I like oatmeal. I like naps. Not the kind of thing you’d expect out of somebody who makes kooky characters out of fabric and foam.
Contact Info:
- Website: thepuppetforge.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/thepuppetforge
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/ThePuppetForge
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@spcglider
- Other: www.etsy.com/shop/thepuppetforge
