Each semester BeAM welcomes a new Maker-In-Residence, an expert who teaches students his or her craft and guides them in the creation of individual and group projects. Zimmerman said he will apply his puppetry expertise with BeAM at UNC.
As this spring’s Maker, Zimmerman will help students create puppets like those used in the Paperhand Puppet Intervention, a group of artists Zimmerman co-directs who promote social change and creative expression through puppetry. They have an annual show in Forest Theatre in the summer. The Paperhand puppeteers create massive puppets and masks from things like cornstarch, bamboo and cardboard.
“I’m here to share my experience and help everyone see that puppetry truly is a people’s art form,” Zimmerman said. “Anybody who puts their mind to it can do it.”
Zimmerman said he founded Paperhand in Saxapahaw, N.C. in 1999. He discovered puppetry at age 19 through Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont, and it has been his passion ever since.
“Puppetry allows for you to make many different things,” Zimmerman said. “There really aren’t any limitations to what you can do because it involves so many different art forms — dance, theater, fine arts, design, writing.”
Zimmerman said he has done many artist-in-residence programs all over North Carolina and recently taught puppetry to students in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Charlie Cummings, the Makerspace program director for BeAM, said he looks forward to Zimmerman bringing his expertise to UNC’s program.
“I think he is very talented and I’m excited to work with him this semester,” Cummings said.
