Bow Arts catches up with designer and maker Charlie Tymms as she updates us on her practice, current projects, and her experience as a long-standing studio holder.

Introduce yourself and tell us a little about your practice?

I am a puppet designer and maker which I fell into by accident. 

It’s not my fault. 

The puppets did it. 

But it is something I am really passionate about now, the combination of engineering, sculpting and storytelling. All my work develops through a collaboration, usually with a theatre director, on what part a puppet will play in the drama.

What are you working on at the moment?

This week I have started designing and developing a large 3 person Troll puppet for “A Boy Called Christmas”, a Chichester Festival Youth Theatre production, so I am in that lovely sweet spot where everything is possible and nothing is overwhelming.

What is the drive/motivation behind your work?

At the core of my work is a love for materials, making and storytelling through puppetry and building a relationship with the director and crew. Key is finding the character in the puppets and the desire to create a dynamic partnership between the materials, manipulation, and action to bring a puppet, which is essentially an inanimate object, to LIFE!

Do you have a particular favorite character that you have helped to create in recent years?

Shelob and the Black Riders from Lord of the Rings were a particular favourite for scale, drama and seemingly impossible constraints. The polar bear puppet I made for “There’s a Bear on my Chair” was a new departure in that I had to sculpt a character from the illustrations by Ross Collins so I had to imagine the ‘skeleton’ and how all the armature could work.

Dan Tsantilis, puppets for “There’s a Bear on my Chair” by Ross Collins, co designed with Toby Olie, with assistant Beez Barry.

How has having an affordable studio at Three Waters impacted your practice? And what is it like about having your studio?

Affordability is key to surviving as a freelancer and enables me time, a precious commodity, to explore my practice between projects. My studio is a haven of possibility, kitted out with workshop tools and equipment to enable me to make just about anything, so my practice has massively benefited from these factors. It has very high ceilings so I can hang a puppet, and is big and light. Plus there is a courtyard where I can test out puppet prototypes for action sequences, an essential part of my work. Geographically, Three Waters Studios is great for me being close to home so I can cycle there. Inside, I enjoy the open-plan nature of Three Waters as you get to meet so many other artists of different disciplines which will hopefully develop into a strong artistic community. It’s a great privilege to have so many creative people in one place.

To date, you’ve had a number of studios with Bow Arts and have met countless artists along your studio journey. What do you think are the wider challenges that artists, designers and makers are facing at the moment?

Bow Arts are such an important support network to enable affordable space to develop your practice. When times are hard, creative opportunities dry up and funding cuts in the arts have been so damaging. The exhibition programme at Bow Arts enables artists at all stages in their lives to experiment and show their work but I honestly don’t know how artists manage to survive financially. The Artist Educator programme at Bow Arts is one avenue for all skills levels.

For people like myself, it’s the peaks and troughs of freelancing. I feel very fortunate to have plenty of creative work doing what I love, but it has taken me years to build up enough contacts to keep me going. I never for a moment take this for granted. One of the challenges in any studio facility in London is having a breakout space for the occasional bigger projects, exhibitions and more experimental installations etc. The Rum Factory had this facility and it was widely used by the studio holders. At Royal Albert Wharf, we negotiated the use of one of the commercial units to set up Art in the Docks. I am a founding member, and it is now a very successful artist-run space with all kinds of events and art exhibitions happening that can also act as a breakout space for large scale experiments. From my experience of meeting Bow artists in London, there is also a real shortage of spaces for Sculptors and Makers using machinery or the more hazardous activities like welding and hot work.

Puppets for “Hamlet” for Theatre In the Forest 2025 in Sutton Hoo.

What have you been working on recently and how does your practice continue to develop and change?

I have recently designed and fabricated Hamlet’s Ghost, a 4m high puppet for a stage production of Hamlet by the Red Rose Chain performing outdoors at Theatre in the Forest in Sutton Hoo which opened on the 23rd July. You can view the puppet here: https://youtu.be/5KexNaLIGA4

My practice is entirely project based which means everything I design and make requires new solutions. I think this has made me more confident in problem solving, more adventurous in design and more adept at skills although not necessarily a better puppet maker! I am fortunate to have had many brilliant assistants over the years who I have also learnt from. 

As a person I am quite shy and love the solitude of my studio space at Three Waters, but am required to meet and impress theatre folk, negotiate budgets, design in a way that inspires directors on the possibilities that puppets have to elevate a story line. Puppets can be so many things, they have license to misbehave, disrupt the status quo and cross between worlds. The basic questions of material existence and living form, it’s magic.

Bernie Totten, puppets for “Hamlet” for Theatre In the Forest 2025 in Sutton Hoo. Thanks to Kris and Yutarro for puppeteering in the courtyard at Three Waters.

Last time we spoke with you, you talked about founding Art in the Docks, an artist-led social enterprise working to provide workshops within the local community. Is this still something you’re involved in and what has it been like to watch it grow?

I moved into Three Waters Studios so I am not directly involved in AITD any more but have been enthusiastically watching it grow into a thriving artist-run space.

You have been a studio holder across a number of our sites, and seen Bow Arts develop over recent years, are there any particular memories that stand out to you?

I always loved seeing the new graduates come in at RAW for their 1 year residency, and one particular favourite was an artist called Clara who made a Cactus Orchestra next to my studio which was a quirky distraction from puppets. The launch event for Three Waters was very memorable because I hadn’t quite realised the scale of the project between Bow Arts and Peabody. It is a feather in the cap for Bow Arts to have a 500 year lease and (selfishly) means I don’t have to upsticks again anytime soon.

Is there any advice you would give to artists who are trying to begin their creative/freelance career?

I think it’s critical to make connections with like minded people and to expose yourself to the arts in all its forms. I would advise finding part time work in any or all of the creative fields; theatre, music, film be it set building, scenic painting, or front of house.

See more of Charlie’s work on her website, and follow her on Instagram. Visit our Three Waters studios to take a look inside the studio site where Charlie works.

About Charlie Tymms

Charlie Tymms is a freelance puppet designer maker working in theatre, film and the visual arts from her studio in East London. At the core of her work is a love for Story Telling and bringing a character to life. Collaborating with directors, actors and a project team can be both challenging and truly eye opening but there’s nothing like the thrill of finding the best outcome possible in response to the script, the budget and the deadline!