Creative industries in Washtenaw County add hundreds of millions of dollars to the local economy. In the weeks and months to come, host Deb Polich, the President and CEO of Creative Washtenaw, explores the myriad of contributors that make up the creative sector in Washtenaw County.
ABOUT JOHN ANDERSON
John Anderson is a graphic designer, curator, and writer. He served as Vice Chair for the City of Saline Arts and Culture Committee from 2018–2020, where he helped increase the visibility of the Bixby Marionette collection through public displays, grants, and the creation of a website featuring materials from the Bixby archive. In 2023, he volunteered to provide page layout, additional archive research, and photo editing for the book “Tales Come Alive! The Meredith Bixby Marionettes: An Oral History,” by James K. and Marcia J. Cameron.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS OF "TALES COME ALIVE":
Jim Cameron conducted all of the oral interviews which are the basis for the Meredith Bixby Marionettes Oral History Project. He currently serves as the President of the Michigan Oral History Association with extensive experience in oral history. He taught Michigan History and U.S. History at Saline High School for 37 years incorporating oral history in his classroom. Cameron’s book, “Voices over the Valley, An Oral History of Saline Valley Farms,” earned Historical Society of Michigan’s (HSM) Award of Merit in 2005.
He belongs to the Michigan Council for History Education and served as Executive Director for 12 years. After serving on the National Council for History Education Board for two terms, he was appointed Interim Executive Director for a year before rejoining the board. Cameron presented on a variety of topics at over 50 Teaching American History colloquia in 22 states. In 2010 Cameron earned the Gilder Lehrman Teacher of the Year Award for Michigan.
Other history activities have included State and National History Day judge, board member and Co-Creator of HSM’s Center for Teaching Michigan History, member of the Saline Historical Society, HSM board member, chair of HSM’s Education and Conference Committee, and co-chair of the Local History Conference. Cameron served as the Social Studies Consultant for the Michigan Department of Education from 2011-2019. In 2023, Cameron received HSM’s annual History Hero Award for significant contributions to promote Michigan History.
Marci Cameron edited the material for this book, “The Meredith Bixby Marionettes,” along with arranging the content of the volume. She currently serves as Editor of the Michigan Oral History Association. She is Editor of the MOHA newsletter and the updated MOHA “A Guide for Doing Successful Oral Histories.” She has extensive experience as a writer and editor, and educator in the field of long-term care and dementia care. She is author of “Views of Aging: A Teacher’s Guide.” In Saline, she initiated Little Free Libraries in the city parks (artful boxes), and wrote the proposal for Art Around Saline. Cameron transcribed the interviews for the book, “Voices over the Valley, An Oral History of Saline Valley Farms,” and a majority of the interviews for this book, “The Meredith Bixby Marionettes.”
RESOURCES:
“Tales Come Alive! The Meredith Bixby Marionettes: An Oral History”
TRANSCRIPTION:
Deb Polich: Welcome to 89 one WEMU's creative:impact. I'm Deb Polich, president and CEO of Creative Washtenaw and your host. Thanks for tuning in on Tuesdays to meet the creative guests rooted in Washtenaw County and learn about the impact and legacy of their work, products and services. Legacy could be our topic today...well, legacy and marionettes. John Anderson and the City of Saline Arts and Culture Committee help preserve the legacy and visibility of the Bixby Marionette Collection. What is the Bixby Marionette Collection? We're going to find out right now! John, welcome to creative:impact!
John Anderson: Thanks for having me, Deb!
Deb Polich: So, you, in your life, are a graphic designer, a curator and a writer. When were you introduced to the Bixby collection, and why did it intrigue you enough to get involved?
John Anderson: It was 2017 when I learned about a project in Saline called "Art Around Saline." And digging into it, I learned that Saline had an Arts and Culture committee. I was still relatively new to the town, so I decided to apply for to be on the committee. And within a couple of months of being on the committee, that's when the mayor, Brian Marl, approached the committee and said, "The city has a collection of marionettes, and you guys are now in charge of it!:
Deb Polich: Just kind of randomly?
John Anderson: Yeah.
Deb Polich: Okay.
John Anderson: And, prior to moving to Saline, I was I was living in Washington, D.C. and had been doing some research periodically at the Archives of American Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. And so, I looked at the archives that were available, the objects that were available within the Bixby Marionette Collection and thought, "This is a goldmine for the city!" A cultural goldmine.
Deb Polich: So, they had you at hello?
John Anderson: Yeah. Pretty much.
Deb Polich: So, in preparing for the show, I did a lot of research about puppets and marionettes. And the definition of a puppet is a figure--a human, animal or abstract in form--that is moved by human effort, not mechanical aid. And puppets include shadow theater, mask theater, hand puppetry, rod puppetry and marionettes. Marionettes are a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings, and a marionette puppeteer is called a marionettist. That's a word!
John Anderson: Yes.
Deb Polich: Marionettes are considered the finest form of puppetry. And, being a lover of etymology, I found it interesting that the name "marionette" is French and means "Little Mary," because back in the day, marionettes were used to tell Christian stories. And Mary, of course, the Virgin Mary was a was one of the characters, and hence that's where the name came from. Bet you didn't know that.
John Anderson: I did not.
Deb Polich: I didn't either. So, anyway, with that background, who was Meredith Bixby and what is this collection? And how did it all start?
John Anderson: Meredith Bixby--I think he was born in Detroit. Actually, that's a thing I don't know. Meredith Bixby lived in Saline from the late 1940s on until his death and in the early part of 2000. He was a student at one point at the Art Students League in New York City in the late 1920s or early 1930s. One of his instructors was regionalist Thomas Hart Benton. One of his classmates was Jackson Pollock.
Deb Polich: To drop a few names.
John Anderson: Yeah, just to name drop. So, while he was a student, he was working at the New York Public Library and found a book on puppetry. I don't know why he sought the book out, or if it just happened to be sitting on top of a stack of books to reshelve. But there it was. And so, he read it cover to cover and fell in love with the art of puppetry. And so, in 1932, he decides to make his own show based off of Faust.
Deb Polich: Right.
John Anderson: Not going to go into depth there. And he did that in Kentucky, I believe, where his mother lived that summer, and then toured around there, took it back to New York City, toured it there for a little bit, and then eventually moved back to Detroit around 1935. And so, he was making his living as a puppeteer, making marionette productions at that time. Some of which were for public consumption. Others were, like, for advertising, which was a pretty common practice back then to hire someone to make a marionette play and promote your refrigerator or washing machine. Anyway, long story short, he moved to Saline and had sort of gotten to this repertoire of making 6 or 7 marionette plays. And he started touring around elementary schools, middle schools throughout the eastern United States. And eventually, as his family grew and his responsibilities became greater at home, he pretty much just focused on Ohio and Michigan. But he had these 6 or 7 plays that he toured every year. And that's how he made his living. And so, that's the puppet collection and then all the supporting materials within the archive support the development of those plays.
Deb Polich: Wow! So, what year was that again?
John Anderson: Oh, he moved to Saline about 1950 or so.
Deb Polich: So, I'm curious because in Detroit we used to have puppeteers come in and do shows in our school system. I'd be curious to find out if it was the same. How cool is that?
John Anderson: Yeah, absolutely!
Deb Polich: 89 one WEMU's creative:impact continues. John Anderson is in the studio telling us about the Bixby Marionettes, an extraordinary collection of marionettes. So, the collection is now visible, thanks to you. It's online. I mean, it's been made more visible by being online. Is it actually a physical collection that one can go see and touch or look at in any way?
John Anderson: In parts, yes. And I'll back up and say it's been a very big effort for a lot of people. My colleague, Katherine Downey who's on the Arts and Culture Committee, has been also very responsible in terms of making it more visible. And we've been working with students at University of Michigan School of Information and the University of Michigan Museum of Art, as well as CultureVerse, which is an Ann Arbor nonprofit. So currently, there is a display at the Saline Public Library, although it's under construction right now. So, it's not accessible.
Deb Polich: Right.
John Anderson: But once that construction is finished, there will be a few marionettes available. There used to be a museum in downtown Saline from 1998 to 2008. And that's something that the committee would like to recreate. And several members of those who've been responsible for the marionette collection over the years would like to see recreated in some form or fashion for a more expansive display opportunity.
Deb Polich: And there has been a book written. Jim and Marci Cameron co-authored the book, "Tales Come Alive! The Meredith Bixby Marionettes: An Oral History." And I need to say this that Jim and Marcy were scheduled to be my guest to talk about the book in June. But unfortunately, she died unexpectedly the morning we were supposed to tape. Such a shock. And our sympathies continue to be with Jim and Marci's family and friends. So, thank you for filling in and giving us the story from your point of view. So, I'm curious. This collection exists. Does it have a place within other collections of marionettes and puppetry across the country or the world? Is it known in that way, or is it still being discovered? and will that possibility be there in the future?
John Anderson: That's a tough one for me to answer, just because there's sort of a past with this collection that, prior to my time in Saline, I wasn't terribly familiar with. But I do know that there are other collections throughout the United States, in terms of, for example, there's the Bill Baird Collection at the Mason City Art Museum in Mason City, Iowa, who would have been sort of a contemporary of Bixby's. Although, he was doing more Hollywood stuff.
Deb Polich: Okay.
John Anderson: But yeah. There are several other small collections throughout the United States. I think there's one at the University of Connecticut. There's one down in Georgia...this is a tough one.
Deb Polich: There's one down in Georgia.
John Anderson: Yeah, there's one down in Georgia.
Deb Polich: Yeah. It's hard to remember where all these places are. You know, I mentioned being in Detroit. And honestly, that puppetry event that I went to as a kid was one of the triggers for me to go forward in the arts. The other thing that I saw once, which was exquisite, was a marionette production in New York City that I frankly can't even remember what the subject was, but I just remember it being so beautiful on the way those marionettes just moved like people. Like, you couldn't even tell that they were not real. It also probably helped that that was at the Jim Henson Studios of the Muppets too to see that production, but it was just remarkable. And they are mesmerizing.
John Anderson: Yeah, that's something that kind of was repeated again and again in the process within Jim and Marci's book. There are a few people who were interviewed. The one thing that is repeated again and again is how, as a child, once the light goes down in the room and the lights go up on stage, the perception of the child watching is to see these 18-24 inch puppets become larger than life. And so, their entire focus is on what's going on in the stage. And considering the time when Meredith Bixby was active, through the '40s and '50s and '60s, the development of television is is slowly growing. There isn't color television in most houses. And the way that he was able to engage children's imagination through these performance, I think, we find a parallel somewhat to Walt Disney.
Deb Polich: Sure.
John Anderson: Who was also creating cartoons for children and for families in a way that Bixby was creating puppet shows for children and families. And even though it's a small world in the puppetry area, so that world just became larger within the auditoriums of the children would be sitting, which would usually be a school gymnasium.
Deb Polich: Right.
John Anderson: And, there are stories within the book about how invested children would become in those plays where they would start shouting at the puppets on the stage, "Look out! So-and-so is behind you!" or "They're hiding behind that bush!"
Deb Polich: It's an interesting legacy, John, thanks for being here on the show and giving us a picture of what you've been involved with there in Saline with your colleagues. I really appreciate you being here!
John Anderson: Thanks for having us!
Deb Polich: That is John Anderson, and he has been here talking about the Bixby Marionette Collection. And you can find out more at wemu.org. This is creative:impact. I'm Deb Polich, president and CEO of Creative Washtenaw and your host. Mat Hopson is our excellent producer. Please join us every Tuesday to meet the people who make Washtenaw creative. This is 89 one WEMU FM, Ypsilanti. Public radio from Eastern Michigan University.
If you'd like to a guest on creative:impact, email Deb Polich at deb.polich@creativewashtenaw.org.
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