John Frame brings the theatrical to art in a whimsical, thought-provoking way with steampunk-ish articulated puppets on their very own stage and at the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino (Pasadena area), his sculptures are set in their own spotlights, a cast of the curious. His tales invite you to dream.

Artists are stereotypically thought to be theatrical. Think Jackson Pollack. Think Salvador Dali. When you meet Frame you won’t think of the “artiste.” He’s tall, neatly groomed, thoughtful.  Nothing in his appearance suggests his faux Victorian fantasies.

Theater has often welcome artists as subjects. What could be more theatrical than the tortured live of Vincent Van Gogh or the self-destructive Amadeus Modigliani? Artists have also been welcomed as set designers. Salvador Dali designed the set for Federico Garcia Lorca’s 1927 “Mariana Pineda,” and a ballet set to Richard Wagner’s 1845 opera “Tannhauser,” the 1939 “Bacchanale”. More famously, Dali designed the dream sequence set for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1945 “Spellbound.”

Edward Gorey, well-known for his animated  introduction to the PBS series “Mystery!”, won a Tony Award for Best Costume design and had been nominated for Best Scenic Design for the 1977 Broady production of “Dracula.”

Frame’s puppets are not sinister, and neither are their motives. There’s no suggestion of murder here. The surrealism is in the half-human figures as well as their environments. Some of them exist in realities partially constructed from eBay vintage and antique finds that have been juxtaposed with faux Victorian mechanisms.

Frame commented that he is an “intuitively-driven artist” and that the characters evolve. Some come quickly enough and the figure is completed in three years. Other may take as long as 20 years. He intuitively knows when it is complete.

When asked for meaning, as all artists are, Frame sidesteps the question, saying that he prefers for the observer to find meaning, “I believe we have to look” and consider things “outside of language.” For him, “Art is a very high, rarified form of communication.”

These lost tales came when he was in that state between dreaming and waking–when you have “one foot in the waking world and one foot in the dream world.” Once he had the story, he worked rapidly writing it all down. It was an intuitive moment, when you “can’t move a muscle” until you completely capture the vision. Even then he was jolted by after shocks days later.

Note that one of the characters comes in various incarnation–a boy with handicaps. These puppets have a strong human presence because, Frame asserts, the eyes. They all have glass eyes. Most of the heads are carved from wood and have a special covering.

The tale is told using digital stop-motion photography and music composed by Frame. The crippled boy has a tree branch growing from his nose. There’s an older man with rabbit-like ears, a young man with cat-like features and a backpack and an astronomer. There are small creatures, Tottentanzers, who have their own set and perform morality plays.

Look carefully and you can see the influence of theater. The books that line the shelves are Shakespeare. Some of the faces of the puppets are clearly drawn from traditional Japanese theater or Italian dell’arte characters.  There’s Arlecchino, the witty acrobat with the cat mask. And the big-nosed Pulcinella, the melancholly dreamer.  Then some of the Tottentanzers resemble the devil masks of Noh. According to Frame, he is well aware of these theater traditions and uses them as intuitive reference points–that is he doesn’t draw directly or mean to specifically use a specific one for any of his characters.

Frame’s actors are constant and not for sale, making his struggle to finance his enterprise even harder. It also means that his world and its inhabitants remain a community that grows and feeds his imagination. The exhibition is beautifully staged with atmospheric lighting. Some characters in their own cases, lit as if on the stage for our own imaginary tales.

For budding filmmakers, the tools of the trade are Final Cut Pro, a Canon 7D digital camera, and the animation program is Dragon Stop Motion animation software according to filmmaker, Johnny Coffeen of Happy Medium Films.

Frame also curated the “Born to Endless Night” exhibit of paintings, drawings and prints by William Blake. As a young artist, Frame was heavily influenced by the works of Shakespeare and the illustrations and writings of William Blake. Blake’s world was “both charming and unsettling” as Blake was a poet, painter and an eccentric unorthodox theologian.

That exhibit includes illustrations from “Book of Job” and Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” Frame, who received his MFA from Claremont Graduate School, was originally working in painting, printmaking and drawing before he began making wooden sculptures.

“Three Fragments of a Lost Tale: Sculpture and Story by John Frame” continues until June 20 in the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery.

Related Book
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated book edited by Jessica Todd Smith and Kevin M. Murphy, with an essay by art critic David Pagel. With 85 color and black-and-white illustrations, Three Fragments of a Lost Tale: Sculpture and Story by John Frame (112 pages, softcover; $24.95) is published by the Huntington Library Press, distributed by University of California Press, and will be available in the Bookstore & More.

Related Exhibition
“Born to Endless Night: Paintings, Drawings, and Prints by William Blake Selected by John Frame”
March 12, 2011 – June 20, 2011
Huntington Art Gallery, Works on Paper Room
This companion exhibition features about a dozen Huntington-owned works by Blake specifically selected by Frame for a display to complement “Three Fragments of a Lost Tale: Sculpture and Story by John Frame.”

WHERE: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. Adults $15 weekdays, $20 weekends; seniors $12 and $15; students $10; youth $6; children 5 and younger free.

TO SUPPORT John Frame’s work, visit his Website and contribute directly or buy photos.