Are you old enough to remember Laffing Sal at Playland? In this episode, my guest Alison and I set out to make a marionette based on Laffing Sal, and it was something that neither of us had ever done before. Photos Links mentioned in this episode alisoncowellish Alison's Instagram Josh Bayer website Inking class online with Josh Bayer Musée Mécanique in San Francisco Playland at the Beach Wikipedia page Laffing Sal Wikipedia page The Lonely Goatherd marionette show in The Sound Of Music Altoid boxes into wallets YouTube video Barbapapas YouTube video Boudica Wikipedia page Sculpey Amazon link The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin Jonni Good website Jonni Good YouTube video Many Faces of Laffing Sal website by M. Winslow Playland at the Beach website by M. Winslow Tillie’s Punctured Romance Wikipedia page Pseudobulbar affect Wikipedia page Some of the above links are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission from them Transcript Thomas: Welcome to You And I Make a Thing. Joining us in this episode is the multi-talented Alison Cowell, a passionate urban sketcher, zine maker, and sometimes spooky storyteller. A familiar face at local zine fests, Alice is deeply immersed in the art community, constantly exploring and sharing her passion with others. Alison’s work has graced several local galleries, and her unique art style is a blend of mediums, including ink, watercolor, and colored pencils, each adding a distinct texture and depth to her creations. Alison’s ability to transform ordinary scenes into extraordinary pieces of art is truly remarkable. And you can find her on Instagram at alisoncowellish. Welcome to the podcast, Alison. Alison: Thank you, Tom. Thomas: Alison, before we get started on our You And I Make A Thing quest, I'm curious to know if you are working on a creative project at the moment, or you're looking forward to working on one? Alison: I am. So right now I have a few projects going on. So my main medium is comics and I’m taking an inking class online, with an artist. A comic artist. His name is Josh Bayer. And so I'm doing some projects for that class, but they're also sort of my projects and they're really like short format comics, where when I'm working on comics, it's usually I'm doing a story about something that's, kind of an idea that's really kind of out there and wacky. Thomas: I like that. Alison: And possibly also slightly tragic. One of the more wacky ones is I sort of have this idea about failed businesses, and that's something that amuses me. And one of the ideas I came up with was, what if you didn't have enough gravy in a meal, and do you remember those old Fotomat drive throughs where you could drop off your film? Thomas: I remember. Alison: So what if there was something like that where you could drive up with your plate and get gravy and it was called Gravymat? So I usually do things that are sort of like these ideas that are a little out there with made up characters, you know, just sort of like these wacky little characters that I create, but I'm doing some more personal stories in this class as well. And all this work I'm applying the different techniques that Josh Bayer, this teacher is breaking down for us. Then the other project that I have that is really a little bit of a rabbit hole and you can really kind of spend hours and hours and hours is like, I bought myself a button maker, and I collect paper ephemera, vintage paper, vintage books. If I see people have cleaned out their kitchen and put all of their old weird pamphlets from, you know, different companies and whatnot from the 60s and 70s, the 50s, those are priceless. and I love the way paper ages. Like it has this yellowishness to it. Thomas: Mm hmm. Alison: Really beautiful. It's so hard to buy paper like I've bought paper like that. It's hard to find in a sketchbook. It's usually really expensive. But anyway, so I have been making buttons out of vintage ephemera and weird, like old comics. And I feel bad I'm cutting things up, right? But, in a way, I guess like I'm giving it new life. And I'm trying to think of ways to display buttons, you know, people put them on their backpacks and whatnot, but I'm trying to find different ways to present them as sort of like assemblages, like an assemblage of buttons, like on a tote bag or something. Thomas: Now these buttons, they're the type with the pin on the back? Alison: Correct. Thomas: Okay. Got it. Alison: It's infinitely fun. It's just such instant gratification. I highly recommend a button machine. Thomas: Well, that's great. Wow. You are doing quite a bit then. With the, exploration of doing comics and stories and buttons. That's fabulous. Alison: Never enough time, but always trying to, you know, I need that creative outlet. How about you? What are you working on? Thomas: Well, I, of course, this podcast, I'm having a lot of fun with this podcast. I'm also right now working and learning block printing. Alison: Whoa, that...
