The Ypsilanti Courier
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Puppeteer left behind lasting legacy
Masters was scheduled to perform show at YDL this week
By Charlie Kondek, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: April 28, 2005
I barely got to know Raymond Masters. He died April 18 of a heart attack.
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Raymond was a puppeteer. He and collaborator Brian Steimel conducted workshops at the Ypsilanti District Library and were going to perform their acclaimed show "Crucibulum Infidelium" this weekend. That's how I got to know Raymond, writing about puppetry events in Ypsi for the Courier.
He was not an old man, just 62, and nothing about him suggested he had been having debilitating episodes of chest pain, dizziness and sweating caused by complications with his heart. But he chronicled this on his blog, where one of the last things he wrote was something called "nitroglycerine haiku."
"tiny nitro pill/ taken for deadly chest pains/ hurt gone instantly"
I saw him two days before his death. He and Brian were giving a workshop at the YDL and I took my young son to see it. I wasn't sure my boy, aged one-and-a-half, would sit still for the event, and he did squirm, as interested in the other kids as what was going on in the staging area.
But when Raymond and Brian brought the puppets out, he was enthralled. And I, like most parents in that kind of situation, was enthralled with his enthrallment.
At the end of the workshop, Raymond and Brian brought out two bipedal cow marionettes. Raymond explained that most puppets, many of which are very old, cannot be touched, but that these could. He and Brian then walked the cows into the audience to shake hands with the kids.
When Raymond walked the puppet over to my son, my son shied away from it, unwilling to touch it but not afraid of it either. Truth is, he couldn't take his eyes off it. And he said what he always says when something pleases him. "Again?"
After the workshop I chatted with Brian for a bit about doing a follow-up story on "Crucibulum." An exhibit at Riverside was also planned. He explained that with Raymond's health being uncertain, the line-up for the show was, too, but they were soldiering on.
Nothing seemed amiss about Raymond. He was animated and happy. I didn't get a chance to talk with him because he and his puppet were surrounded by excited children. So I just thanked Brian and told him I would talk to them both later.
Turns out I would never talk to Raymond again.
Raymond Masters was an interesting guy. He held a commercial truck driver's license and worked for the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute compiling safety data until he retired in 2002. He'd been in the army, and was a licensed private investigator. He was a lung cancer survivor.
He had been raised around animals; and he and Brian had a menagerie at home that included five cats, a dog, two goats, two geese, one rooster, fish, and two donkeys.
His true professional passion, though, seemed to be puppetry and performing. At a crossroads point in his life, in 1966, he responded to an ad seeking an employee for the Meredith Bixby marionette studio in Saline, and was hired. Bixby taught him the craft, and eventually Raymond's interests grew to also encompass mime, dance and all aspects of performing. He earned a BFA in fine arts from Marygrove College through the University of Detroit.
Raymond performed in thousands of shows and contributed to scores of others, and was the last person to have worked in all of Bixby's extant productions and with all Bixby's extant puppets. These materials can be seen at the Bixby museum in Saline.
All this can be ascertained by reading his web site (personal.umich.edu/~xray), which is also full of Raymond's witty writing and attractive pictures.
What you might not have known is how delightful he was to be around in person. As I said, I barely knew him, but I got a taste of his knowledge and expertise, his enthusiasm for the magic of puppetry and performance.
He was, in short, a man I was looking forward to seeing a lot more of, a guy I would have liked to have had a few beers with (he preferred Frog Island Amber), to sit around Sidetrack's or someplace listening to his stories or to watch as he and Brian showed me theatrical artifacts, puppets, costumes, wizards, monsters, all the things that come to life in their workshop. In fact, I told Raymond when we met for that last Courier story that I would write up everything he and Brian did.
"Again," my son says whenever something amuses him and he wants me to repeat it. I wish I could "again" my brief time with Raymond Masters. What keeps looping through my mind is the subtle, satisfied smile he wore on his bearded face the times I saw him working the puppets he seemed to love, and that last visual memory of him smiling like that, surrounded by children who see in the puppets the same fascinating spark that he did.
A memorial will be held for Raymond at Riverside Arts Center May 1, starting at noon. The planned exhibit at Riverside opened this week and will run until then. I urge you to see it. For gallery hours, call the Riverside at 480-ARTS.
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