Bio
Chris is a designer, sculptor, theater-maker and community educator whose work revolves around the design, construction and performance of puppets, masks, props, costumes, theatrical inventions, kinetic-sets and sculptural installations. He produces his art predominately from waste-stream materials, exploring the unique potentials inherent in a variety of materials.
For two decades Chris has been working to facilitate original thinking in the realms of theatrical, educational and public-art design. A deep emphasis is placed upon eco-consciousness, resource-fulness, collaboration and improvisation.
Chris is founder and artistic director of Big Animal Productions LLC, a public art production company, based in Minneapolis, MN. He also manages and directs Puppet Farm Arts, a humble nonprofit community-arts organization. The mission of The Puppet Farm is “to improve the health of human communities and the Earth by teaching people the process of transforming waste materials into imaginative art”.
Chris received a 2006 Bush Artist Fellowship, a 2008 Public Art Saint Paul Sustainable Practices Fellowship, a 2012 McKnight Theater Artist Fellowship and a 2014 Forecast/ McKnight Professional Development Grant. He is on the Minnesota State Arts Board and COMPAS Creative Classroom and Artful Aging teaching-artist rosters.