The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will present the grand opening of two new exhibitions: Reed + Light: Works by Anne Cubberly, and Masters of the Marionette: Rufus and Margo Rose, on Saturday, March 7 at 2 p.m. at the Ballard Institute in Storrs Center.  The opening events will include a tour of Reed + Light by curator and artist Anne Cubberly and a demonstration of Rose marionettes by puppeteer Fred Thompson.

In Reed + Light, acclaimed Hartford visual artist and spectacle creator Anne Cubberly presents some of her trademark giant puppets and costumes representing the strong, the fragile, and the temporary. In this installation Cubberly shows how—with reed, paper, fabric, and repurposed materials—she works on life-size and giant scales to create the honesty of a sketch.

Guest curator Fred Thompson and UConn Art History student Hannah Kennedy present the work of Connecticut’s most famed puppeteers of the 20th century, Rufus and Margo Rose, in the new exhibition Masters of the Marionette. Spanning the decades between their early cross-country tours of the 1920s and the newer technologies of film and television, this exhibition traces the path of these pioneers of American puppetry.

Both exhibitions will be on display through June 28, 2015.

In conjunction with the opening celebration, both Anne Cubberly and Fred Thompson will participate in the Ballard Institute’s Spring Puppet Forum Series. On Wednesday, March 11 at 7 p.m., Cubberly will lead a presentation titled Making Art with Your Community, in which she will talk about her extensive work in the Hartford area, and its focus on creativity, process, community, and re-purposed materials. On Wednesday, April 8 at 7 p.m., celebrated puppeteer and teacher Fred Thompson will illuminate the Masters of the Marionette exhibition by describing his own work with puppeteers Rufus and Margo Rose. These events are free and open to the public.

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