Ventriloquist and Puppeteer, Kirk Maynard

Posted on November 23, 2009 by Webmaster

kirk-maynard
Ventriloquist & Puppeteer, Kirk Maynard

Steve, my webmaster, brought this to my attention. Steve has been in contact with Kirk after finding this article. It’s about Kirk Maynard of Natural Bridges Puppet Production Company.

Kirk Maynard’s goal “To bring joy and laughter to the world”

 

Thanks, Kirk for allowing us to share this with our readers of Ventriloquist Central.

Here’s the Natural Bridges Puppet website:

http://www.thenaturalbridges.com/

 

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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Dan Willinger is a ventriloquism enthusiast and ventriloquist figure collector. He has been collecting for over 25 years. He created the Ventriloquist Central Collection. It now has over 100 ventriloquist figures and over 50 of them are Frank Marshall figures. Because of his love for the art of ventriloquism, Mr. Willinger created the website Ventriloquist Central. For more information about the website, go to: http://www.ventriloquistcentral.com

Copyright 2009 by Dan Willinger

NOTE: You may use this blog article provided you run it with the bio box intact. Please email a copy of your publication with the blog article in it to: webmaster@ventriloquistcentral.com

Posted in Puppetry, Ventriloquism/Ventriloquist, Ventriloquist Central | Leave a comment

Pete Michaels the Ventriloquist's Ventriloquist

Posted on November 22, 2009 by Webmaster

pete-michaels
www.petemichaels.com

 

You know it is a very small world and I proved it to myself when I went to the very first of my trips to the Vent Haven ConVENTion a number of years ago. One of the first I met was Pete Michaels. I was sitting on the bench in the lobby of the hotel with Helen and this jovial guy came over and started chatting with us and it turned out to be Pete. After a few hours he asked me where I was from and when I told him Malden Massachusetts. He went wild. You see he lived in Malden with his grandmother for a couple years. He even went to the Daniels Elementary School and had Mrs. Nutter (yes that was her name…the old battle ax) for second grade and so did I except I had her about 10 years prior to Mike. It was great fun getting to know Pete and fast becoming friends.

Pete has become one of the working Vents that you don’t hear a lot about in the major news media but I think you should because he is a consummate ventriloquist and performer. He seems to stay in his little corner of the world but I am sure soon he will be making his mark a lot farther and wider than he is at present.

I am happy to be able to say Pete Michaels is my friend and the following link is a great article about Pete and I hope you enjoy reading same.

Pete Michaels is no dummy

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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Dan Willinger is a ventriloquism enthusiast and ventriloquist figure collector. He has been collecting for over 25 years. He created the Ventriloquist Central Collection. It now has over 100 ventriloquist figures and over 50 of them are Frank Marshall figures. Because of his love for the art of ventriloquism, Mr. Willinger created the website Ventriloquist Central. For more information about the website, go to: http://www.ventriloquistcentral.com

Copyright 2009 by Dan Willinger

NOTE: You may use this blog article provided you run it with the bio box intact. Please email a copy of your publication with the blog article in it to: webmaster@ventriloquistcentral.com

Posted in Ventriloquism/Ventriloquist, Ventriloquist Central | 3 Comments

Happy Birthday Ray Guyll, Today's Master Figure Maker

Posted on November 21, 2009 by Webmaster

rayandkirby

Ray Guyll with “Kirby”

I am very lucky because I can never forget Ray Guyll’s birthday. Why you ask? The reason is because my own Dad’s birthday was November the twenty first.

I thought since it was Ray’s birthday I would shout it out to all of you who read the blog so you too can also say Happy Birthday to Ray.

Click below to hear friends who called in to give Ray some birthday wishes.

[display_podcast]

We also did some digging and found these wonderful shots of some of the superb figures that Ray has created both famous and not so famous for you to see. I think after you view these you will see why I call him the true Gepetto of our time.

Click here to see some of Ray’s work.

Dan

www.ventriloquistcentral.com
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Dan Willinger is a ventriloquism enthusiast and ventriloquist figure collector. He has been collecting for over 25 years. He created the Ventriloquist Central Collection. It now has over 100 ventriloquist figures and over 50 of them are Frank Marshall figures. Because of his love for the art of ventriloquism, Mr. Willinger created the website Ventriloquist Central. For more information about the website, go to: http://www.ventriloquistcentral.com

Copyright 2009 by Dan Willinger

NOTE: You may use this blog article provided you run it with the bio box intact. Please email a copy of your publication with the blog article in it to: webmaster@ventriloquistcentral.com

Posted in Ray Guyll, Ventriloquist Central, Ventriloquist Figure (Dummy) Makers, Ventriloquist Figure Building, Ventriloquist Figures | 6 Comments

Oil vs Acrylic for Ventriloquist Figure Paint

Posted on November 20, 2009 by Webmaster

happy-hazard
Happy, A Ray Guyll Paint Job

I was having a great conversation the other day with Steve the webmaster about the painting of figures. You all know that Steve learned figure making from the best ” Ray Guyll” and he said he is using oils like the master.

Back before the 1970’s all the figure makers were using oil based paints because that was the norm and it took time for the paints to dry. Frank Marshall used to mix his colors using oil based house paint. I think this is the main reason why today’s makers like the acrylic paints. They dry in a matter of minutes and if you make mistakes you can redo them with not much trouble.

Well if you use cobalt dryer you can also get oils to dry rather fast. No not minutes but over night is very real. Also when you use oils for painting there is a depth to the paint that you just do not get with acrylics. So which do both Steve and I like ?? It is the oils of course.

If you want to try using oils all are available including the cobalt dryer at Michaels and you can purchase small tubes to try this and they are not expensive.

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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Dan Willinger is a ventriloquism enthusiast and ventriloquist figure collector. He has been collecting for over 25 years. He created the Ventriloquist Central Collection. It now has over 100 ventriloquist figures and over 50 of them are Frank Marshall figures. Because of his love for the art of ventriloquism, Mr. Willinger created the website Ventriloquist Central. For more information about the website, go to: http://www.ventriloquistcentral.com

Copyright 2009 by Dan Willinger

NOTE: You may use this blog article provided you run it with the bio box intact. Please email a copy of your publication with the blog article in it to: webmaster@ventriloquistcentral.com

Posted in Ventriloquism/Ventriloquist, Ventriloquist Central, Ventriloquist Figure (Dummy) Makers, Ventriloquist Figure Building, Ventriloquist Figures | 2 Comments

Displaying Ventriloquist Figures

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Webmaster

As the Ventriloquist Central Collection has grown I have had to make accomodations for the figures to keep them all on display. You see my wife made it very clear that it was OK for them to all be out on display but they had to remain in their own room.

As the size of the collection has grown I have found I needed ways to display them so that the seating is less. I started by using the small plastic children’s chairs that you can purchase in the toy stores. The worked really great except that the width soon became a problem. I found that These chairs have arms and I had to find chairs without arms so that they would then be in closer quarters. I scoured all the stores and so did Helen searching for children’s chairs without arms. We found many and I started replacing the plastic arm chairs with the new armless and found I actually was able to double the amount of figures in the room.

OMG there is no more room. What am I going to do?? Well I found that a guitar stand is a great way to display a figure standing up so I used stands to place many figures standing behind the figures that are seated. This has worked very well but I am quickly finding I will have to again find a way to display.

One of my ideas now is to take the chairs out completely and use glass blocks with long finished boards and make some stage style seating much like what you find in one of the rooms at Vent Haven Museum. Anyway this is a problem I just love having because it means the Ventriloquist Central Collection is growing and that is a good thing.

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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Dan Willinger is a ventriloquism enthusiast and ventriloquist figure collector. He has been collecting for over 25 years. He created the Ventriloquist Central Collection. It now has over 100 ventriloquist figures and over 50 of them are Frank Marshall figures. Because of his love for the art of ventriloquism, Mr. Willinger created the website Ventriloquist Central. For more information about the website, go to: http://www.ventriloquistcentral.com

Copyright 2009 by Dan Willinger

NOTE: You may use this blog article provided you run it with the bio box intact. Please email a copy of your publication with the blog article in it to: webmaster@ventriloquistcentral.com

Posted in Dummy Collecting, Ventriloquism/Ventriloquist, Ventriloquist Central, Ventriloquist Figures | 3 Comments