Persona by Kayle Hope
Ricky Syers is an artist who makes marionettes based on real people. He started out playing music in Washington Square Park and just brought a marionette for fun. He later realized people wanted to see the marionettes more than watch him play the drums.
Transcript :
Ricky – Time, but is it work? I don’t know. It’s works. Ya know, works of art. This and that, but it’s something I just love to do.
Girl fight.
Ricky – Maybe technically, I am able to make me without having to make me. This will be me later and I’ll grow into my character.
Ricky – Though its helpful, my wife is the one with the benefits, she’s a correction officer and she works very hard, she’s the one with the punch in punch out clock life.
Hey Stix what happened? Show them the magic trick you know.
Ricky – And I’m now, really, working to be as much of the artist that I am.
See years ago, I thought I was a laborer trying to be an artist, but I discovered that I am an artist trying to be a laborer. That’s what I was all this time.
It’s not really who you are, it’s what you do, but this is more of what I am, and who I am, by walking around with a marionette. I just walk around with it. I don’t think of it as I’m gonna put on a show.
People for the first time come up and compliment me on what I did for her. They come up and thank me for what I did for Doris and there’s nothing like that. I never had that before.
Thank you, Rusty..some more chow.
Listen Buster, I’ll tell you what.
Doris – I am very outgoing and so is Doris. I think all of them, he goes after the character of the person he is doing and so they become distinctive persons and when I walk through the park now, people say Hi Doris!
more info:
Ricky Syers is an artist who makes puppets based on real people in Washington Square Park. His marionettes include an elderly woman named Doris, Larry the bird guy and other Washington Square Park regulars. Ricky lives in Dunellen, New Jersey but takes the train to New York to busk in Washington Square park every chance he gets. Ricky’s marionettes look identical to the people they represent but their characters are often more exaggerated than the people in real life. Doris is a long time activist in Washington Square Park who has been a friend to artists in the park for years. Doris was interested in Ricky’s puppets and they formed a special friendship. She shared with him some old clippings of reviews she wrote about famous marionette makers like Bil Baird when she worked as an art critic. After learning so much from Doris, Ricky decided to make Little Doris. He had been wanting to make Psy so that he had a marionette that could do gangnam style. He changed his mind and decided to make a granny that could do gangnam style because he thought “what’s better than a granny who can dance,” Ricky said. Ricky’s puppets reflect on the relationship between identity and art. Through his animations, Ricky makes these characters come alive in the marionette versions of themselves.
