{"id":2136655,"date":"2025-11-05T11:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2136655"},"modified":"2025-11-05T11:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:19:10","slug":"this-l-a-artist-is-forging-her-own-path-in-hollywood-with-puppets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/this-l-a-artist-is-forging-her-own-path-in-hollywood-with-puppets\/","title":{"rendered":"This L.A. artist is forging her own path in Hollywood — with puppets"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Jackie Smook, a puppet maker and creator of the show \u201cDilly\u2019s World,\u201d cuts the tail fabric made of Arctic polar fleece of a sardine puppet at her home workshop.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Tucked away in a small neighborhood below the Hollywood sign is Jackie Smook\u2019s puppet workshop, a small sequestered room with a single work table surrounded by the characters she handcrafts from the depths of her imagination. Smook, the creator of the web series \u201cDilly\u2019s World,\u201d is a whimsical and eccentric personality, falling nothing short of what one expects from the title \u201cpuppet maker,\u201d with her Willy Wonka-esque enthusiasm, style and tangential character-driven anecdotes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important not only to be a builder if you\u2019re gonna do anything niche like this; it\u2019s good to also be a performer,\u201d says Smook.<\/p>\n

Smook was classically trained in opera and studied musical theater at the Boston Conservatory before she moved to Chicago and started building puppets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told myself I would build one puppet a day to get really good at it,\u201d says Smook.<\/p>\n

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Jackie Smook, a puppet maker and creator of the show \u201cDilly\u2019s World,\u201d sews the body fabric made of Arctic polar fleece of a sardine puppet at her home workshop.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Along her creative journey, Smook applied to \u201cAmerican Idol,\u201d<\/a> where she claims she was a \u201cpersonality hire,\u201d<\/a> but the exposure on the show allowed her to connect with PBS in Chicago, launching her career. Smook was suddenly producing work for multiple TV shows and feature films, and has been producing puppets professionally for three years.<\/p>\n

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1.<\/strong> Jackie Smook, a puppet maker and creator of the show \u201cDilly\u2019s World,\u201d threads a needle while working on a sardine puppet at her home workshop.<\/span> 2.<\/strong> She sews the tail fabric made of Arctic polar fleece of a sardine puppet.<\/span> 3.<\/strong> Some of the threads she uses in her work.<\/span> 4.<\/strong> Painting the eye cups of a sardine puppet.<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

In her shop, Smook cuts away at pieces of Arctic polar fleece, stitching, stuffing and shaping the form of a sardine puppet. In a mere seven hours, from concept to construction, the character takes form \u2014 a blue sardine donning sunglasses, large lips and vibrant orange hair, a signature look of her work.<\/p>\n

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Jackie Smook builds a sardine puppet. Other puppets she crafted are in the background.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

\u201cPuppets are so colorful, they\u2019re tactile, you can touch them. And in a world of this new emerging AI, it\u2019s a way for people to make sure that things are remaining real and tangible,\u201d says Smook.<\/p>\n

Smook\u2019s audience ranges from small children to grown adults, and highlights that a combination of nostalgia and authenticity of the analog craft creates a timeless experience that ushers in a wide audience.<\/p>\n

Despite the playfulness of puppet-making, the work requires a complete investment of Smook\u2019s time and energy, making it rewarding but lonely.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is frustrating to be my friend sometimes, because I am working all the time,\u201d says Smook.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPuppets are so colorful, they\u2019re tactile, you can touch them. And in a world of this new emerging AI, it\u2019s a way for people to make sure that things are remaining real and tangible,\u201d says Smook.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Smook attributes a strong support group of friends and fellow artists who understand the commitment she has to her work, making a balance between her craft and her personal life more manageable.<\/p>\n

Despite long hours and packed schedules, there is fulfillment beyond the personal joy of creation with an opportunity to make her audience laugh and offer respite from a \u201cchallenging world.\u201d<\/p>\n

With her new show, \u201cDilly\u2019s World,\u201d a story about a girl named Dilly and her friends who confront social and emotional issues, taking off with a live tour, there seems to be no rest for Smook in the near future. The work, however, is welcomed and is a source of inspiration not only for her, but also for aspiring puppet makers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives me a lot of hope for the future of puppetry and puppet building, because the two thriving things right now, for some reason, are puppetry and comedy,\u201d says Smook.<\/p>\n

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1.<\/strong> Jackie Smook stands with a sardine puppet that she made in a day at her home workshop.<\/span> 2.<\/strong> \u201cIt\u2019s important not only to be a builder if you\u2019re gonna do anything niche like this; it\u2019s good to also be a performer,\u201d says Smook.<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jackie Smook, a puppet maker and creator of the show \u201cDilly\u2019s World,\u201d cuts the tail fabric made of Arctic polar fleece of a sardine puppet at her home workshop. Tucked away in a small neighborhood below the Hollywood sign is Jackie Smook\u2019s puppet workshop, a small sequestered room with a single work table surrounded by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2136656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2136655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/This-LA-artist-is-forging-her-own-path-in-Hollywood.com2Fd92F9b2F3ec65f7d4e21bf16d585561e.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2136655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2136655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2136655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2136657,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2136655\/revisions\/2136657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2136656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2136655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2136655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2136655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}