Volkenburg Puppetry Symposium:
Session 1 – The Labor of Gratitude

Volkenburg Puppetry Symposium 2026

Artists often regard their creative talents as a gift that they are called to share, whether they receive financial compensation or not. As a result, it can be difficult for artists to negotiate equitable compensation for their work within a money economy that tends to commodify their creative output. This symposium series examines the benefits and drawbacks of different funding sources including government funding, commercial ventures, and strategies community supported artists use for audience building.

Session 1: The Labor of Gratitude

In The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, Lewis Hyde posits that the creativity of the artist is a gift that comes from a source outside the artist’s control. Artists labor in gratitude for many years to fully realize the power of their gifts and finally claim them only in sharing them with other people. Thus, they function most productively within networks of exchange that anthropologists have described as “the gift economy.” Yet, in our modern society, artists struggle to provide for their material needs while undertaking the labor of gratitude necessary to develop their talent. Additionally, they struggle to reconcile themselves with the mindset of the market economy that insists on valuing their output only as commodities rather than in terms of the relationships the gift exchange nurtures. This panel will invite the participants to trace the labors of gratitude they have undertaken in their artistic development and the path they have navigated through the demands of the market.

Moderator:
Paulette Richards

Panelists:
Drew Dir and Julia Miller (The 4th Witch)
Ashe Winkfield and Alva Rodgers (Harlem Doll Palace)
Laura Heit (The Matchbox Shows)

About the Symposium: Named in honor of Little Theatre of Chicago director Ellen Van Volkenburg, who coined the term “puppeteer” in 1912, the festival’s annual symposium brings together puppetry enthusiasts, scholars and festival artists from Chicago, the U.S. and internationally for free discussions around the intersection of puppetry with other disciplines and ideas.