SNOHOMISH — Lucio Pinto’s puppets have been homeless for too long.
Some stay in Lynnwood, where he lives with his wife, Maria Pinto. He keeps others in Monroe and Kirkland, with members of his 11-person puppeteering troupe.
This summer, though, Pinto will relocate the entire collection of more than 200 puppets to the basement of the Carnegie Building in Snohomish, where he plans to open his own theater.
Pinto, 67, wants to use the city-owned building to teach classes, build marionettes and put on productions such as “Peter and the Wolf.”
The Bolivian-born puppeteer said having his own space will give him a better way to share his talent and love for an unusual art.
“I enjoy just looking at those characters,” he said of his puppets. “They are coming alive not by miracle, but by devotion, dedication.”
Pinto reached out to Snohomish about the 1,500-square-foot basement. He will rent the space for $900 a month. The money will go into the Carnegie Restoration Fund for future projects at the 100-year-old building.
The basement will help Pinto fulfill a long-held goal for his company, World of Dreams, allowing him to make puppeteering his sole focus — a sort of working retirement.
Pinto spent most of his life in other jobs, he said. He said he served as a cultural anthropologist for the United Nations for about a decade, briefly taught at the University of Washington and helped set up a Sister Cities program for Bellevue.
Through it all, he honed his skill with puppets.
He made his first hand puppet while living in Bolivia when he was 6 or 7. He kept practicing, and eventually learned how to use marionettes — puppets with articulated joints.
Pinto now sees puppeteering as an ideal tool of communication. He plans to emphasize that point in his theater’s workshops, which may run up to nine weeks long and cost as much as $700.
“With the marionettes — with any kind of puppet — people can express themselves, lose the shyness,” he said.
Pinto builds his own marionettes, mostly using wood and papier-mache. He said some of his creations, particularly the garishly colored clowns, have spooked children. He even has a Halloween show focused on creepier creations.
Mostly, though, he tries to overcome the fright factor with fanciful shows such as “Spotlighting Clowns,” which has been performed at the Imagine Children’s Museum in Everett.
“I want to break the scary situation that the clown represents,” he said.
He and his troupe also use their puppets to tackle the classics, such as holiday productions of “The Nutcracker Suite,” featuring elegantly designed Russian soldiers.
He plans to charge $6 for adults and $3 for children for most shows.
He wants to start performing later this summer. While he still needs to work out some scheduling details, he has at least one thing nailed down.
He knows how to breathe life into his creations.
“That takes time and practice,” Pinto said. “That takes dedication and that takes love.”
Andy Rathbun: 425-339-3455; arathbun@heraldnet.com
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