Sandy Spieler is a sculptor, painter, graphic artist, performer, director, teacher, activist, and perpetual student. Her work includes tiny puppet shows, main stage productions, public art commissions, streetscape designs, residencies/collaborations in communities, schools and universities locally, nationally and internationally. She is passionate about work For the Water and the reparation of our world, and constantly wonders what it means to enact a “theatre of inter-being.”
She is a founder and fulltime midwife of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre and the Annual Mayday Parade and Ceremony in her diverse urban home community in Minneapolis MN thru 2019. She holds an MA of Cultural Performance from Bristol University England, studied puppetry arts at Bread and Puppet Theatre and at NYU. She’s grateful for supportive awards over the years including two UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence and the 2014 “Distinguished Artist of the Year” from the McKnight Foundation.
More About the Artist
Sandy asks for art to waken Wonder !? for our lives: gratitude-filled Wonder! for the glorious world we are lucky to be a part of, and question-filled Wonder? for tackling the disparity and illness afflicting individuals, humanity and the Earth. Sandy aims for each person to experience their own agency, as well as a culture of participation in creating Art to enliven an empathetic, responsible humanity.
Sandy creates lesson plans for specific topics, occasions and skill levels and most often employ a holistic approach of integrating Art with a Science or a History/Cultural focus. Art fueled by curiosity and awe can be a fundamental foundation for all learning, all culture building, and all relationship building amongst life’s kin.
Learn more about Sandy:
Program Offerings
Residencies
Toy Theatre – Grand Stories of Miniature Proportions
Make a miniature stage from a cardboard box, and flat figures and scenery from hand drawn images, or images found in magazines, newspapers or research files. This is an excellent way to explore stories of cultural heritage, the wonders of natural phenomenon, a particular moment in history, or the imagination of one’s personal dreams. This little box stage is especially ripe for examining the “insides” of stories—of exposing elements that are sometimes invisible, or imagining alternative outcomes of situations in unexpected ways.
Masks
Explore/celebrate some aspect of yourself that is sometimes hidden—your spirit mentor, your animal protector, your ancient ancestor, your future self. Masks can be face sized, or much larger than life. Sculpted in clay, then rendered with papier-maché, this is a meditative exercise that is also dang fun. Masks can also be sculpted with cardboard, plastic and tape, and finished with papier-maché if clay is not available.
Water
Sandy is passionate about Water, creating and enacting work For the Water for over 30 years, and would be thrilled to work with any age level and setting. Sandy creates lesson plans with a holistic approach of integrating Art with a Science or History/Cultural focus. For instance a lesson about Watersheds could combine the intricacies of how we receive and use the Water, with questions of who all share the Water with its primal gift of life. Questions of science, of culture, of equity, and of agricultural and industrial practices are then integrated into the Art we create while also considering the impact of materials used on the Water itself. Such teaching wakens awareness of how everything is interconnected and challenges the responsibility of each of us toward the care and gratitude of the Water.
Workshops
Banner Making – Moveable Murals
Bring forward words and images that inspire us. Paint them or Print them. Bring them into the street, Hang them on a wall, Transform a space for a special celebration.
Handpuppets
Create alluring figures from the simple materials of old socks, scrunched paper, and bits of tape, papier-maché and paint. Handpuppets are a great way to explore compassionate interactions with each other.
“Your work has given heart and meaning to my/all of people’s lives for many years. You are able to pierce through the linear mind, with all its defenses and blockages and send the arrow of your message right into our hearts. No matter how much we know, we open up deeper and deeper layers of truth, heart and spirit.”
LouAnn Lanning
