The Pellone/Barrett Puppet Collection
By Greg Pellone
It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams. –Gabriel García Márquez, novelist.
R
ecently I was asked two questions about my pup- pet collection: “Tell us how you have decided what to have in your collection, and what are your long-term plans for the collection?” Easier said than done! I believe that to understand “a collection” (that is, any collection), you must understand “the collector.” However, even the great father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, had trouble explaining his own collecting obsession. According to Brunella Eruli, collectors are con- tradictory figures who live between greed and magnanimity. The collec- tor must love the object of his/her quest and must have an obsessive and restrictive passion that becomes some sort of rule or reason for life. In the days before the pandemic, when we all could still enjoy social events, it was fun to watch how people reacted when the conversation eventually got around to “so what do you do?” and I would say “I’m retired, but I enjoy collecting puppets.” After an awkward pause, the expected eye roll and “Oh really?” I’d explain that puppets are not just for children and that many cultures over thousands of years have had some type of puppet tradition. It is amazing how many people still think puppetry is only for children. Luckily for them, I’m always ready to tell them about my collection! The Pellone/Barrett (P/B) Puppet Collection actually be- came official around 25 years ago; before that, it was mainly a lifelong hobby. My mother made my first puppets when I was five years old. She was a talented artist, and they were excellent puppet replicas of the two wonderful characters of Beany and Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent created by Bob Clampett for Time for Beany (1949–1955). Unfortunately, they no longer exist, but they sparked an enduring interest in the art of puppetry. I spent 20 of my early years serving in the U.S. Air Force and was fortunate to travel around the world in various assignments. It was during that time that I became more serious about acquiring puppets and puppet ephemera from other countries. Living in Germany for more than eight
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Bunraku puppet heads. All photos by Brian James, from the Pellone/Barrett Puppet Collection.
years allowed me to travel the European continent as well as the Middle East and offered more opportunities to find unique and indigenous creations. I was curious about how puppets in different countries and cultures were made and used. How were they constructed, what materials were used, and how were they controlled? It’s one thing to look at a picture of a Bunraku puppet head in a book, but quite another to hold one in your hand! Those were pre-internet days, and my research required visiting libraries and consulting books. Even today, online information about puppetry is gener- ally limited and many books about puppetry are cursory. Over the years, the P/B Collection slowly grew, and I decided to try to acquire a puppet from every country in the world that had some type of puppetry tradition. It got a little complicated with coun- tries like Russia, which was then the core of the Soviet Union and includ- ed many other unwilling participants. It’s intriguing that Eastern Bloc places like Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Uzbekistan are still influenced by the old Soviet puppetry traditions. I have been extremely fortunate to be able to continue traveling (that is until COVID) and to explore the cultures and folk art traditions of different countries. I have also been excited to visit some of the finest
puppet collections in the world and to meet or correspond with some of today’s great puppet makers, masters, authors, and ex- perts. The P/B Puppet Collection is very modest in comparison to many other collections in the world, but modest is a relative term. There are some significant pieces that are one of a kind and irreplaceable (this seems to be an occupational hazard in the puppetry arts). I am extremely proud to have helped pre- serve, for example, puppets from Mali, considering the recent crisis involving a corrupt political system, extreme poverty, and continued violence. Before her untimely death, my dear friend Linda Petryszak was prophetically concerned about saving puppets from destruction due to war, political unrest, natural disasters, or just general neglect and loss of traditions.
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