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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Puppetry a lifelong passion for Muriel Liere

Muriel Liere, 91, has been making hand puppets for years. She used to do shows with Project Joy, but now she  shares her puppetry and creations with her church. (Colin Mulvany / The Spokesman-Review)

Muriel Liere’s passion for puppetry began at the age of 5 when she saw her first puppet show.

The family farmed in Plaza, Washington.

“Once a year we’d go to the Sportsman’s Show in Spokane,” Liere, 91, recalled. “When I was 5, we saw a big crowd gathered and I told my sister, ‘I want to see what’s going on!’ I was a tiny thing and my sister put me on her shoulders. It was a puppet show! It was Hansel and Gretel!”

Enthralled, she begged to stay to see the next show. Her sister agreed and they snagged front row seats.

“The puppets were darling,” Liere said. “Hansel and Gretel were cute as a bug’s ear, but somehow I was fascinated by the witch. She was so scary.”

All the way home from the show Liere said she thought, “I bet I could make a witch.”

When they arrived at the farmhouse, she delved into her mother’s rag bag and found some black material. She set about making her first puppet.

“It must have been horrible, but I had fun making it.”

That was more than 100 puppets ago and Liere’s passion hasn’t dimmed.

She attended Eastern Washington University, intent on becoming an art teacher, but World War II intervened. “There was a teacher shortage and I was given an emergency teaching certificate in 1943.”

Liere took a job teaching fifth grade in Colville. She and a friend swapped some classes.

“I ended up teaching all the art I wanted,” she said.

And, of course, puppetry was included.

“One of the kids’ dads made a stage, and we did a puppet Christmas play.”

The school superintendent was so impressed, he told her she needed to share her shows with civic groups.

“We had so much fun,” she recalled.

When her fiance returned from the war, they married and that put an end to her teaching career. Married female teachers were frowned upon at the time.

So, she plunged into family life, raising three children. When they got involved with Camp Fire and Boy Scouts, Liere did, too, sharing her love of puppetry with a new generation.

Each of her puppets is handmade. She thinks she’s crafted characters for 12 fairy tales at least, but over the years it’s easy to lose count. Her Snow White and the Seven Dwarves were modeled after Disney’s version – each expression matching the character’s personality.

She crafts the heads from papier-mache, sculpting the noses, carefully tinting the skin tones and painting expressive facial features. The arch of Cinderella’s eyebrows, the tilt of Rapunzel’s smile, reveal much about each character.

Yarn is used for hair, mustaches, beards and sometimes eyebrows.

“I love working with yarn,” she said. “I don’t like using wigs.”

Then she sews the clothes. Sumptuous gowns, kingly finery, ragged peasant costumes and of course the evil witch’s black cloak.

Accessories are carefully crafted, too. Dangly earrings, belts, necklaces – nothing escapes Liere’s attention to detail. “The fun is in the details,” she said.

She sticks to hand puppets because marionettes were too complicated to use in performances, she said.

Her first husband died in a drowning accident in 1975. In 1980, Liere found new love with Oscar Liere. They married on Valentine’s Day and she moved to his home (a former mink farm) in Spokane Valley.

Oscar Liere was a willing accomplice in her puppetry. In the early ’90s they read about Project Joy, an organization composed of entertainment acts featuring folks 50 and older.

“We tried out and were accepted,” said Liere, and Puppets of Joy was born.

In addition to making puppets, she made all the scenery and props and wrote many of the scripts. The group performed at area schools and retirement centers. But when Oscar passed away in 2007, Liere disbanded Puppets of Joy.

“I lost the heart for it,” she said. “I just couldn’t do it without him.”

However, her love of puppetry remained and became a family affair. Son Bruce now makes the sets and props and daughter Barbara performs the shows with her. They do the performances primarily at Spokane Valley United Methodist Church, and family friends or folks from the church help out, too.

Liere no longer writes the scripts. “It’s so much easier to get a book and have a narrator,” she explained.

But she has no plans to curtail her puppet making. Currently, she’s working on a Christmas play for her church that the public will be welcome to attend.

“It’s called ‘God Gave Us Christmas,’ ” she said. “We’re trying to show that Christmas is about more than Santa and presents.

A mama polar bear and her baby are taking shape in Liere’s capable hands.

As she cradled her latest creations, she said puppetry is “a great way to encourage imagination.”

The she grinned, “And it makes people happy!”