{"id":16587,"date":"2021-12-02T14:59:57","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T20:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=16587"},"modified":"2022-01-12T14:09:22","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T20:09:22","slug":"harding-student-builds-puppet-for-arkansas-school-for-the-deaf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2021\/12\/02\/harding-student-builds-puppet-for-arkansas-school-for-the-deaf\/","title":{"rendered":"Harding student builds puppet for Arkansas School for the Deaf"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Madison Meyer <\/em>| Photo by Madison Meyer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sophomore Megan Drause built and donated a puppet that can sign American Sign Language (ASL) to the Arkansas School for the Deaf. She first came up with the idea in high school, where she was taking a puppet-making class, but began the building process last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast year, in my English class, my topic for the entire semester that I spent time studying and researching was Deaf culture and how we can better the education of Deaf children,\u201d Drause said. \u201cIt was probably the best opportunity I was going to get to make something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drause designed the puppet, Maggie, to make its home in the art classroom at the School for the Deaf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted her to look really fun and colorful,\u201d Drause said. \u201cPart of that is not just because she is going to be living in an art room, but because of the theory about colors. Bright colors keep your attention a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drause intentionally created the puppet so that the puppeteer could use both hands for signing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe way that it works is she sits on a stand that would hold her head up and you put your hands into hers,\u201d Drause said. \u201cThey almost look like little gloves. Then you can do sign language with your hands and hers while she sits up on her little stand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drause consulted with ASL instructor Debbie Woodroof, who works in Harding\u2019s Communication Sciences and Disorders Department, when her puppet was in its prototype stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome schools for the Deaf may have them, but I would be surprised if they did,\u201d Woodroof said. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen it in all my years. I think she\u2019s onto something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Maggie was one of Drause\u2019s most recent creations, she has made many different puppets, each with unique designs and personalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really strange skill to have, but it\u2019s a really, really fun one,\u201d Drause said. \u201cIt\u2019s really easy to make people smile when they\u2019re looking at a puppet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drause even built the Narwhal hat used in Harding\u2019s theater production \u201cElf: The Musical.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMegan is a part of the costume build crew, a small group of student workers who are hired to help produce costumes for all of the shows put on by the University Department of Theatre,\u201d costume shop supervisor Katy White said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drause came up with the ideas for each puppet, built and hand-sewed each one herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy inspiration doesn\u2019t really come from anywhere specific, it just comes from whatever I\u2019m feeling at the time,” Drause said. “It turns into whatever little character I make.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drause gave away the majority of her puppets to people who found joy in her creations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have much use for them by myself, so I don\u2019t want to just hoard puppets,\u201d Drause said. \u201cI\u2019ve given a decent amount of them to people who I think would just enjoy them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though she considered it a hobby, Drause deeply enjoyed making puppets and would have enjoyed the chance to make it a full-time career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI always say that the one thing that could get me to drop out of school in an instant would be to work for the Muppets,\u201d Drause said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Madison Meyer | Photo by Madison Meyer Sophomore Megan Drause built and donated a puppet that can sign American Sign Language (ASL) to the Arkansas School for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15206,"featured_media":16588,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}