Marie T Keller

Biography

Education: B.F.A Rhode Island School of Design 1994 M.F.A New York Academy of Art 1996 WPI provides opportunities to investigate worlds beyond your major, and one of those worlds might be art. It might seem an alien world, but many art skills can be useful beyond making art. Drawing enhances spatial perception. Solving design problems hones communication skills. Dreaming up impossible ideas can illuminate what is possible. Sometimes students show up the first day of my course worried that they lack talent or experience. Instead, I recommend committing to practice the skills presented in class, as if approaching music or engineering studies. I am here to help you surprise yourself at what you can learn to do. My own education began with illustration and contemporary drawing approaches, and continued with training in Old Master and other figurative painting traditions. After working in New York for many years, eventually I went on to study woodcarving for puppetry with Mirek Trejtnar and Leah Gaffen at KidPraha in Prague, Czech Republic. Upon learning about the rich history of puppetry and its contemporary practice, I quickly found myself creating shows and performing in European festivals. I also enjoy collaborating with other artists in ever expanding capacities. Recently, VavaVoom Theater and the Bedroom Community music label of Iceland invited me to create a central set piece for the visual theater work, Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists, which premiered at the 2014 Reykjavík Arts Festival. Most currently I am designing a large, multi-performer dragon marionette for a 2016 production of Shrek: The Musical.

Research Interest

History of puppetry; Northern Renaissance art; Contemporary art, or since 1945; History of books