The hallmark traits of a Muppet – the wide-open mouth, the pingpong ball eyes and psychedelic fur – can be created with some scissors, hot glue, guidance and a little imagination, but to master the voice you should instead just focus on becoming the character.

Thats some of the advice award-winning puppeteer Michael Earl, Bay Area native and former Mr. Snuffleupagus on Sesame Street, offers during his two-day puppet-making workshop, which he brought from Southern California to San Francisco for the first time this weekend.

When you have a great puppet, it makes your job so much easier, said Earl, 52, who has managed to turn his childhood obsession with puppets into a lifelong Emmy Award-winning career that includes The Muppet Movie, The Jim Henson Hour and an appearance as a puppet alien opposite Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in Men In Black II.

Earl, who was born in Oakland and raised in San Leandro and Livermore, fell in love with puppetry when he saw a show at a street fair in San Francisco at the age of 5. By the time he was 13, he was already a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Puppeteers Guild and an apprentice at Childrens Fairyland in Oakland.

After moving to New York and getting hired by Muppets creator Jim Henson, Earl got a break when the original Mr. Snuffleupagus, Jerry Nelson, hurt his back and Sesame Street needed someone who could play the large woolly mammoth with the long snout.

They needed somebody tall and strong and I was 19. They needed somebody who fit the suit, explained Earl, who played the character for three years from 1978 through 1980.

While Earl, who lives in Los Angeles, continues to perform, he has also taught puppeteering for the past 25 years, working with school children as well as adults.

In 2010, he and his business partner, Roberto Ferreira, founded Puppet School in Sherman Oaks (Los Angeles County), and they recently expanded to New York. He also conducts workshops like the one in San Francisco, which included one day of puppet making and a second day that focuses on character voices, choreography and improvisation.

For Chris Springer of Hillsborough, an aspiring puppeteer who works in building maintenance for a school district, it was a chance to see how the big guys are doing it.

Its neat to have someone who worked with Henson come help us. Thats the top of the top, said Springer, 43, who is developing a puppet Web series.

Alexis Rudd, who lives in Guerneville, has experience creating realistic animal puppets for Folkmanis Puppets in Emeryville, as well as for her own company. Ive never done anything kind of Muppety, Rudd, 33, explained.

Elana Isaacs, who teaches at Tehiyah Day School in El Cerrito, said, as she cut her foam and glued it into place, that she wanted to use puppetry to develop programs for kids dealing with problems like prejudice and bullying. She said she had never before made a puppet.

Sesame Street and the Muppets have been a big piece of my heart for a lot of my life, Isaacs, 42, said.

The Puppet School will be back in San Francisco on March 10 and 11. Full-day classes including materials cost about $225 to $275. For more information, go to www.puppetschool.com.

E-mail Victoria Colliver at vcolliver@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C – 2 of the San#xA0;Francisco#xA0;Chronicle

THE former high-profile art dealer Ronald Coles is a man of few words.

For the past three years, he dodged dozens of irate clients who entrusted him with their life savings, including superannuation funds, and then refused to co-operate with a police investigation into his business affairs.

But now, Mr Coles, 64, faces up to 10 years in jail over an alleged art fraud scheme that left more than 40 people who had purchased his paintings as investments more than $8 million out of pocket.

YANGON, Myanmar Artists in Myanmar are testing new freedoms through films shown at a festival that for the first time in the countrys recent history were not censored.

The Art of Freedom Film Festival began screening films on Saturday that were not approved by the strict Film Censorship Board.

Myanmars new nominally civilian government has relaxed some draconian security measures, although films are still supposed to pass the censorship board.

The event was organized by comedian Zarganar, film director Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Zarganar, who uses one name, was recently released from three years in prison. He described the festival as freedom of expression through film.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - By now, people expect a lot
from the entertainment offerings in Downtown Los Angeles. The era
when there was only the Music Center and the Museum of Contemporary
Art is, fortunately, long gone.

The problem is, there is so much
happening now that it can be hard to choose what to do. Huge
concerts fill Staples and the other venues at LA Live, while
avant-garde theater and dance is available at places such as REDCAT
and some untraditional outlets. There are movies, film festivals,
readings and much more. Here are just a few of the many highlights
on the 2012 cultural calendar.

Feeling Chili: Cool
fact No. 1 about Anthony Kiedis: In the 1991 Keanu Reeves-Patrick
Swayze-Gary Busey film Point Break, Kiedis played Tone, a
bad dude surfer. Cool fact No. 2 about Kiedis: On Feb. 26-27, he,
along with Flea and the two other Red Hot Chili Peppers, will
headline Staples Center. Yep, the quintessential LA
funk-rock/party-rock band will perform in front of nearly 18,000
people not far from where Kiedis used to score drugs (according to
the 1991 song “Under the Bridge”). It’s also in the same building
where his beloved Lakers play. 

Dance on the 51st
Floor: Heidi Duckler has brought dance to some unlikely
Downtown venues, including the City Council chambers, the old
Marriott hotel on Figueroa Street and the LA Police Academy. On
three weekends in February, she looks up, literally, for a new
site-specific work. Cleopatra-On the Banks will take place
on the 51st floor of City National Tower on Flower Street. Twelve
dancers will cavort around the office space once occupied by ARCO.
Fittingly for a Downtown skyscraper, the show will focus on the
nature of power.

Hail the Idiot:
Perhaps the only thing stranger than snotty punks Green Day
creating a thoughtful hit and winning Grammys with the album
American Idiot was that the same album became a successful
Broadway musical. Somehow, the 2004 disc built around the
nine-minute song “Jesus of Suburbia” made the theatrical leap, and
it lands at the Ahmanson Theatre March 13-April 22. The show that
earned three Tony nominations might finally succeed in bringing a
young audience with candy-colored hair to the Downtown
theater. 

Dance Los Angeles Revolution: One
oddity about Los Angeles is that the culture-rich city has never
sustained a ballet company. An effort to change this will take
place Sept. 22-23, when Benjamin Millepied launches the new LA
Dance Project. The 30-something Millepied is best known in
mainstream culture for choreographing the dance scenes in the film
Black Swan and for getting engaged to the film’s star
Natalie Portman, but he’s got a heck of a resume, having
choreographed hundreds of pieces. The show at the Dorothy Chandler
Pavilion will feature designs by New York painter Christopher Wool
and a score by Nico Muhly.

Cirque du Thriller:
These days, local lovers of Cirque du Soleil flock to Hollywood for
the new big-budget Iris, and they’ll soon drive to Santa
Monica to check out Ovo. On Jan. 27-29, however, they’ll
head to Staples Center where the Montreal-born crew will present
Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour. The performance
will mesh the late King of Pop’s music and choreography with
Cirque’s inventive and often jaw-dropping acrobatics. The story, if
it matters, involves a Giving Tree.

An Unoccupied
Market: The Occupy LA protests at City Hall ended Nov. 1,
but its impacts remain. They include changing the nation’s
perspective on corporate bailouts, and a dead lawn and a still
displaced City Hall Farmers Market. This year, market organizers
will seek to repair the damage caused by being exiled from their
home of four years to a barely visible spot across the street.
Market boss Susan Hutchinson said 2012 will be about re-growing the
market, and although some longtime vendors may have dropped out,
she expects new ones will fill the available spots. It remains
unclear when the Thursday market will return to the south lawn of
City Hall. 

LA Pop: The Grammy Museum will
launch its next major exhibit on Feb. 22, when it looks at three
decades of music in our fair city. Trouble in Paradise: Music
and Los Angeles, 1945-75, curated by USC professor Josh Kun,
will run through March 25 and include photos, album covers, posters
and filmed interviews with musicians and other prominent figures in
LA music. The exhibit will look at everything from rock to jazz
to the Sunset strip scene as it examines how various forms of music
helped shape the city in the decades after World War II. 

Waiting to Go to
Godot: Two men sit idly on a country road, chatting,
singing, swapping hats, eating, sleeping and waiting for some dude
named Godot. If you haven’t read or seen a stage adaptation of
Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece, trust us, Waiting for Godot
is better than the plot synopsis promises. The existential
“tragicomedy” gets a staging at the Mark Taper Forum from March
14-April 22. Beckett experts Barry McGovern and Alan Mandell are in
the spotlight of the play directed by Michael Arabian. 

Return of the Righteous
Babe: Few folk rock artists, or any artists for that
matter, have inspired legions of diehard fans like Ani Difranco
has. She’s a powerhouse on the six-string, and she writes more
songs than just about anybody — cranking out almost an album per
year since 1990. The founder of Righteous Babe Records has another
one due in January, and as usual, she’ll tour to support Which
Side Are You On, which she has promised will capture her take
on the political moment. The Difranco train stops at the Orpheum
Theatre on March 24.

See It, Fold It, Live It,
Love It: The Japanese American National Museum will show
the potential of a simple piece of paper as a form of art with
Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami. The
exhibit, which runs from March 10-Aug. 26, will feature more than
100 creations by about 40 artists who really know what to do with a
dead tree. The show will focus on how origami has had an impact on
technology, math, science, art and even world peace.

More Treats Than
Tricks: Local children will once again have a place to get
loads of candy when the Halloween Party for Downtown LA Kids
returns on Oct. 31. Organized by the Downtown Center Business
Improvement District, the event takes place at Grand Hope Park at
Ninth and Hope Streets and gives Central City wee ones the
opportunity to trick or treat outdoors. There are always other
activities too, among them a bounce house and plenty of games.
Last’s year’s event attracted more than 1,000 people.

Chuch-Oh My: One
2012 Walt Disney Concert Hall concert in particular will have
audience members silently chiding Frank Gehry for a crucial error
in his otherwise celebrated design of the Grand Avenue venue: When
Afrocuban jazz maestro Chucho Valdes gets his hands on the house
Steinway on Feb. 16, many will wonder, “Well, Frank, where do we
dance?” Valdes and his Afro Cuban Messengers are godfathers of the
Latin jazz genre. And if Chucho is the godfather, consider
the other artists on the bill —  congero Poncho Sanchez and
trumpeter Terence Blanchard — bona fide good fellas. 

Grand Time on
Grand: Grand Performances, fresh off its 25th anniversary
season, can be counted on for another summer of eclectic local,
world and off-the-beaten-path performances. Confirmed at Cal Plaza
in summer 2012 are Niyaz, who fuses traditional Iranian vocal and
instrumental music with electronic stylings; Mexican dance troupe
Pajaro de Nube, which practices butoh, the slow-moving dance that
originated in post-nuclear Japan; and Mexico City-based puppeteers
Brujerias de Pape (Paper Witches). LA literature enthusiasts will
delight in an evening of staged readings of Charles Bukowski
works.

 Los Angeles Downtown News 2011

World Wide Art, Inc., one of the leading art galleries and custom conservation framing shops in the nation, has announced that The Buffalo Tipi, a piece by artist Judy Larson, is now available at its store.

San Francisco Bay Area, CA (PRWEB) December 31, 2011

World Wide Art, Inc., one of the leading art galleries and custom conservation framing shops in the nation, has announced that The Buffalo Tipi, a piece by artist Judy Larson, is now available at its store.

Larson has possessed a lifelong passion for art, learning at a young age from her father, a professional illustrator. Although she has found success as a commercial artist, illustrator and art director, her true calling is wildlife art. The Buffalo Tipi conveys the deep meaning of the horse and buffalo to the Plains Indians.

We are thrilled to offer one of Judy Larsons best paintings to our customers, said David Wilfong, spokesperson for World-Wide-Art.com. This piece really showcases her innovative technique to creating true works of art.

Larson approaches her art in a way that is distinct from most wildlife painters in that she uses scratch board, a seldom-used technique requiring extreme patience and attention to detail. Her exacting process begins with a smooth, hard sheet of China clay affixed to board, on which she paints a silhouette of her subject in black India ink. She then carves the outline she has created into the clay with X-acto blades, and once the subject has been etched, it is a full black and white rendering of the work she is in the process of creating. Finally, Larson uses airbrushes, gouache and acrylics to add color and bring her work to life.

The Buffalo Tipi was created by using this method, and Larsons patience and dedication is certainly reflected in this moving work of art. The painting centers on a beautiful Appaloosa horse, a breed favored by the Plains Indians for pursuing buffalo and other prey. Blue and red paint adorn the horses face and body in symbols characteristic of a hunting steed, and symbols are painted on the tipi wall behind the horse as well.

The buffalo symbol depicted in this work signifies gratitude for past hunting successes, and other symbols are intended to give the horse sharp vision and to help the hunter spot life-sustaining buffalo from a distance. In the Plains Indian tradition, a hunters wife or mother would paint a symbol on the horse that represented her secret prayer for her loved one while he was on the hunt.

The Buffalo Tipi stands out from Larsons entire body of work, said Wilfong. The symbolism in this painting is profound and illustrates the richness of the Plains Indians culture.

In addition to Larsons The Buffalo Tipi, World Wide Art offers countless other new releases, limited editions and honored collections by todays top artists. For more information, please visit www.world-wide-art.com.

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For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prwebJudy-Larson/The-Buffalo-Tipi/prweb9070955.htm

Art People Gallery, a premier destination among San Francisco art galleries, presents the latest works of internationally acclaimed contemporary artist Mike Elsass.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) December 30, 2011

From Quebec to the Gulf Coast winter and the Louisiana swamps, Mike Elsass draws his energy from nature and from life. The Arizona desert and the Kentucky countryside blend his art. Elsass is a wanderer; whenever the energy of a place attracts him, he stops and tries to absorb and then reinvent it. He is dedicated to landscapes that reflect the moment of the soul; his abstracts, painted on rusted sheets of steel, have emotional and visual connections with places of choice and memories beyond the present. Elsass sees the aging of the metals and its imperfections as a mirror of the human condition, and his spiritual search finds its expression in the fusion of light and texture. Each of his painted reflections pulls the viewer into a world of meditation and serenity. Today, Elsass creations can be seen at Art People Gallery where his work is on permanent exhibit.

Although mostly self-taught, Elsass followed the advice of his mentor, nationally renowned steel artist Roger Sayre, on exploring the possibilities of steel as a surface for acrylic. He constantly reinvents texture through the process of sanding and rusting sheets of metal, which he covers with luminous colors, sometimes as many as 40 coats of paint and glazing. Light and dark colors cohabitate on the textured metal, providing changing effects and achieving a tri-dimensional effect in the tradition of chiaroscuro.

Mike Elsass artwork can be seen at Art People Gallery, located in the Crocker Galleria, 50 Post St., San Francisco, CA 94104.

To learn more about Mike Elsass, go to www.artpeople.net/

ABOUT ART PEOPLE GALLERY

Art People Gallery is located in the Crocker Galleria, 50 Post St., in the heart of the financial district, near Union Squares exclusive shopping area, close to the MOMA and the Jewish Museum. Art People is a full service gallery that specializes in contemporary fine art painting and sculpture by Bay Area and international artists. Art People also offers residential and corporate placement services including art rental programs, consulting and installation.

Art People Gallery is open Mondays through Fridays 10am-6pm, and on Saturdays from 11am-5pm. For more information, contact Ali Meamar at (415) 956-3650 or at info@artpeople.net. You can also become a follower of Art People Gallerys Facebook page.

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For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prwebartpeople/mikeelsass/prweb9071210.htm

Museum and gallery goers have been backing British culture, despite the economic downturn. Record numbers have joined the national fundraising charity, the Art Fund, boosting its membership by 15% last year.

The fund allows regional and national institutions to acquire important works for their collections.

It might look surprising when set next to some of the more urgent charitable causes, said Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund. Yet there has been a quickening of the philanthropic pulse which means that more people, not just the upper echelons, are doing more to support galleries and museums. There seems to be a greater understanding that the quality of British life is bound up with the quality of these things.

Deuchar puts the trend down to an urge to improve communities and the reinvention last spring of the funds National Art Pass, allowing holders to gain discounts and free admission to arts venues.

When this organisation started, it was about large-scale philanthropy and the good of the nation. Now it has been replaced by the feeling that it is about the individual and the world they want to live in, he said.

In 2011, the Art Fund supported or pledged to support the acquisition of almost 150 works of art. Items acquired with its help included Alex Katzs portrait of Vogue editor Anna Wintour, which is now in the National Portrait Gallery and currently its most popular picture and bestselling postcard.

In conjunction with the Artclash Collective, Silver Streak Gallery will host the first annual Fun-A-Day in Tucson exhibition in February 2012.

Fun-A-Day is a simple concept that produces beautiful results: Pick a project (take a photograph, make the bed, draw a picture, bake a cake, etc), do it every day in January, then show your work the following month in a big group show. The medium can be anything you choose; performance art, photography, drawing, painting, music, textiles, macaroni art, etc. Expect the gallery to be filled to the rafters with cool art!

The show is all ages, unjuried and we will show all the work we receive. No registration is required, but please give us a heads up if you want to participate so we can reserve some space for you. Give us a holler at info@silverstreakgallery.com.

Im considering partcipating with some kind of photo exhibit but its going to be a surprise.

Silver Streak Gallery is a new art gallery at the brand new Monterey Court Studio Galleries, 404 W. Miracle Mile (at 14th Avenue), west of Oracle Rd. They are dedicated to showcasing inventive works of contemporary art, photography and sound by emerging artists. Website: www.silverstreakgallery.com, phone 520-207-3216. Their hours will be Wednesday – Sunday: 3pm – 8pm (closed Monday and Tuesday) and by appointment.

This Monterey Court collective of artists amp; retail shops has adequate parking around it and promises to have a cafe amp; bar as well. Check it out sometime. We visited a few of the galleries (paintings, photography, gourd creations, metal amp; ceramic artisans) on December 22 during the Winter Solstice grand opening of Silver Streak Gallery.

Sarasota art dealer Robert Preiss walks out of court in August. Preiss, who was sentenced to two years in prison for selling art and never paying the owners, is being accused of running a broader scheme while being free on bail, a plan so brazen that it included the unwitting cooperation of a judge and prosecutors to delay his trial.

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HERALD-TRIBUNE ARCHIVE / 2011 / TODD RUGER

A former art dealer who pleaded guilty to conspiracy will face sentencing in January, as will a fired state trooper caught with child pornography on his work and home computers.

Those two upcoming court dates in Alexandria are among the many major court cases scheduled for 2012.

Also, a former Rapides Parish police juror will be retried in May, and a Pineville teenager is scheduled to stand trial in May on a second-degree murder charge.

Art dealer Robert Lucky, who formerly was a Natchitoches businessman, will be sentenced Tuesday in US District Court in Alexandria on one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud in an art forgery saga involving the work of Natchitoches Parish folk artist Clementine Hunter, who died in 1988 at the age of 101. Two other defendants have pleaded guilty.

On Jan. 27, ex-State Trooper Jay Sandifer will be sentenced in federal court after pleading guilty in October to one count of receiving Internet child pornography. Sandifer faces five to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Sandifer also faces state sex-crime charges in LaSalle, Concordia and Franklin parishes.

Pineville teenager Dimitry Smith is scheduled for trial May 7 in 9th Judicial District Court in Alexandria in the 2010 drive-by shooting that killed an innocent woman as she sat on a sofa arm in her Pineville home.

Smith was 16 at the time of the shooting, but he will be tried as an adult.

An accomplice, Jeremy Carlton Kirk Sr., pleaded guilty to manslaughter in early December. Kirk, who was 17 at the time of the killing, was sentenced to 25 years in prison at hard labor and agreed to testify against Smith.

On May 21, former Rapides Police Juror Steve Bordelon is scheduled to stand trial again in federal court on one count of bribery in an alleged land-for-influence scheme. US District Judge Dee Drell in November declared a mistrial after a jury could not reach a verdict.

Other high-profile cases will wind through the local judicial system in 2012.

Though no firm date has been set, Angelo Doogie Golatt, who turns 29 in February, will probably stand trial in 2012.