Dax Tran-Caffee and the Museum Proper Puppets

Craft & Design

I'm a word nerd who loves to geek out on how emerging technology affects the lexicon. I was an editor on the first 40 volumes of MAKE, and I love shining light on the incredible makers in our community. In particular, covering art is my passion — after all, art is the first thing most of us ever made. When not fawning over perfect word choices, I can be found on the nearest mountain, looking for untouched powder fields and ideal alpine lakes.

Contact me at snowgoli@gmail.com or via @snowgoli.

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May 12th, 2012

Bay Area artist Dax Tran-Caffee has always been drawn to storytelling. He began his career as a painter, but the static format feel short of his desires and he progressed to moving images and then moving sculptural images in the form of puppets large and small. He founded The Museum Proper, and their amazing debut street performance was at the SubZero Festival in San Jose two years ago. (Check out this video of the performance to see the puppets in motion.) It’s fascinating to see the puppets go from concept to creation, and to take a peek at the harnesses used to wear or control each puppet. Some of them seem like wearable automata.