A friend invited me to the Bread and Puppets touring show as it passed through Memphis (and offered me a ride to make it easy), and I'm so glad. It was the surrealistic, visionary, joyful, touching, challenging about the state of the world carnival. They called it the Upside Down World Circus, and that was pretty exactly right. They referenced Medieval plays and mummery on the website, and that also felt right with performers on stilts, live music (brass plus accordion and drums), and huge papermache heads and creatures. A dozen or so performers, an old school bus, an absolute ton of props and banners, all out in a field in an underdeveloped part of old Memphis. Unexpected and delightful. They had their own lights, no sound, and a well-practiced but off the cuff set up. I started sketching (the larger watercolor piece) before they started, mostly at dusk, and it soon descended into almost complete darkness. I enjoyed trying to catch bits and pieces of the performance as it danced, trotted, and cavorted past, but nothing can truly capture something like that.

There is also a strong printmaking component, since the beginning  of the troop almost 50 years ago. They believe in art that everyone can afford. They company sells hand printed posters, banners, cards, and zines, and then there's a table for the individual performers to sell their handmade prints as well. I mean, puppts, printmaking, and bread. So many good things packed into one evening.

I switched to just a pen (my new stub nibbed Twisbi with Wearingeul Inferno ink) in my smallest sketchbook for all the subsequent sketches. Just impressions to help me remember and mark an unusual and delightful evening.