Archival photo of a 1930s Macy’s Day Thanksgiving Parade, from the collections of the Ballard Institute. Photo courtesy of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry.


Frank Ballard rod puppets from his 1982 production Babes in Toyland, from the 2018 exhibition Frank Ballard Into the 80s at the Ballard Institute. Photo courtesy of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry.


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items to consider so that the institute’s holdings represent the global scope of the art form. These policies are works in progress, as Bell and Wicks consider how to tackle ongoing challenges of the collection, including accessibility, preservation, and deaccessioning.


A current goal is to make puppets and archival materials more accessible to staff, students, and researchers by creating more intellectual and physical control over the collections. After hearing a presentation at the New England Museum Association Conference, Wicks created an inventorying program with her staff of student workers to slowly go through the entire collection, identify what has been documented in the database, rehouse objects in archival boxes, properly label boxes, and create a new system to document the location of objects on shelves and in the database. To date, over 2,000 objects have been inventoried. The inventory process allows Wicks and Bell to see what backlog exists and to make sure everything is accessioned, cataloged,


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and searchable. As the collection is inventoried, Wicks and Bell also plan to transition to a new database software. With the conversion process to a new database, Wicks will be able to improve the continuity and accuracy of object information. An interesting challenge (but also one of the most fascinating and fun aspects) of working with a puppetry collection is the variety of materials and media found within it, and often appearing all together in just one puppet. Puppeteers by nature are creative and resourceful, and that often means that any conceivable material—foam rubber, cardboard, Celastic, plastic wood, wire, fabric, wood, and everyday household items—can be used to make a puppet. From rod puppets and oversized foam puppets created by Ballard, to substantial collections of marionettes by Ballard, the Roses, Sarg, Baird, and the Haineses; the dozens of Tolu Bommalata shadow puppets; and over 60 framed images by famed photographer and UConn Puppet Arts graduate Richard Termine, the Ballard Institute has to be able to accommodate objects of varying sizes and materials. Puppets are not necessarily created with the long term in mind, so preservation can be a challenge. The Ballard Institute also has a sizable library and archive including books, photographs, VHS tapes, film reels, DVDs, ephemera, scripts, production notes, and drawings. Wicks and students are organizing all this material, storing and rehousing it in ways that will preserve this wide range of media as best as possible. The collection is currently stored in the three Depot Campus cottages, but the institute is running out of space, and Bell and Wicks are working with the university to find improved storage solutions for the future. The BIMP website (https://bimp.uconn.edu/) now includes the entire online catalog for the groundbreaking exhibit Living Objects: African American Puppetry, as well a virtual view of three recent exhibits: Shakespeare and Puppetry (curated by Jungmin Song), Paul Vincent Davis and the Art of Puppet Theater, It’s Always Pandemonium: the Puppets of Bart Roccoberton (curated by Matt Sorensen), and Immaterial Remains: Can You Preserve Shadow? (an exhibition about Chinese shadow puppets curated by Annie Katsura Rollins). Bell and Wicks also have begun to look into the process of deaccessioning items that no longer meet collecting policy goals. This can seem like a daunting process but is an important part of museum work, especially in terms of further defining the focus of the collection. Bell hopes to augment the Ballard Institute’s collections with notable works by U.S. puppeteers active in the late 20th century, including oral histories and documentary materials as well as puppets themselves. By shaping collecting goals and organizing the institute’s collections and data to become ever more accessible to scholars, puppeteers, and the general public, Wicks and Bell envision the Ballard Institute pursuing Frank Ballard’s lifelong dedication to the art of puppetry by continuing to develop as an international source of inspiration and information about the fundamental cultural role puppets play in the lives of communities everywhere.


John Bell is the director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and Associate Professor of Puppet Arts at the University of Connecticut. He is a founding member of the Brooklyn-based theater collective Great Small Works and the author of American Puppet Modernism and co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance.


Emily Wicks received her MA in history and MLIS degree, with a specialization in Museum Studies and Archival Management, from Kent State University in Ohio. She has experience in cultural resource management, historical research, and museums. Before joining the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, Emily worked for the Shaker Historical Society in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and the ACLU of Ohio.


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