Most people have never been the puppeteer inside a 12-foot-tall puppet, but Jennifer Racusin has.
“You are completely surrounded by fabric, and you have this big, heavy wooden thing attached to you,” Racusin recounted. “You don’t feel like yourself at all because you’re hidden inside of this thing. … You kind of become whatever it is that you want to be.”
Have a little fun
To keep up with Jennifer Racusin’s community art events, follow @msjandthefairies on Instagram. For more information about the World Cup watch parties, visit carsla.net.
Some of the only vision the puppeteer has is through the bottom, watching their feet with every step. There’s a sheer fabric in front of their face, but if the light hits it just wrong, it’s blinding. They must trust that nobody will walk in front of them.
“You get to just travel through space and watch how you’re transforming the tone of the event as you move through it,” Racusin said.
She’s been a puppeteer in the past, but the Lompoc artist’s latest project is designing costumes for two enormous puppets that will appear at watch parties for the World Cup. The project is a collaboration between an organization called Community Arts Resources and One Grain of Sand Puppet Theater in Los Angeles.
Racusin is working with her friend, Beth Peterson, who founded the LA puppet theater company. Even though Racusin no longer lives in LA, the pair still work on projects together.
“We’ve been commissioned to build these two puppets and a ball and create this tableau,” Racusin said. “It’s really just two kids playing in the park with a soccer ball.”
The puppets will dance around at watch parties in June and July. Some will be at Metro stations, and others will be at neighborhood parks. Their goal is to represent the kids who dream of becoming soccer stars.
‘There’s a little bit of the Central Coast that’s coming down to celebrate the World Cup in Los Angeles.’
—Jennifer Racusin, Lompoc artist
When it comes to designing the puppets, Racusin and Peterson are still in the early stages. Racusin made measurements and renderings in her sketchbook. Swatches of fabric in different colors line the pages, too.
A cardboard mockup will help with scaling because of the puppets’ sizes. The top of the puppeteer’s head will just about reach the waist of their puppet.
“It’s like a backpack kind of thing. So, there’s this wooden structure that goes up and you put it on like a backpack,” Racusin said. “Normally we control the arms when we do it, but this time it’s going to be the legs.”
The vision is for the puppets to be kicking the ball around with each other and the fans at the watch parties. One park is in a predominantly Black neighborhood, and the other’s in a Latino neighborhood. The puppets’ attire will represent the communities surrounding both parks.
“On top, one is going to be the moon, and one is going to be the sun. There’s kind of African imagery in one and Mexican imagery in the other,” Racusin said. “There’s all of these layers of things that we’re thinking about and talking about what we want to have represented in these puppets, thinking about the people that love sports and soccer.”
Instead of honoring the great fútbol stars, the puppets are average kids running in the park, dreaming of professional play. She hopes the creations will add extra joy to the World Cup extravaganza while representing a community facing threats from immigration enforcement.
“There’s a little bit of the Central Coast that’s coming down to celebrate the World Cup in Los Angeles,” Racusin said.
Puppetry intrigued her while she was an undergrad at the California Institute of the Arts, where she studied theater and costume design. The artist enjoyed the fact that when it comes to making puppets, the costume is the character. She also likes the engineering behind it all.
“I really enjoy the challenge of piecing together something with no clear instructions,” Racusin said.
It’s something she conveys to her students, too. She spends her days in Lompoc classrooms as an artist in residence. Schools give her a designated classroom to set up a maker space that she fills with art supplies from her home studio. Racusin described her lessons as cardboard art and engineering education.
With students, her goal is to guide them through the process of making their ideas tangible. Open-ended challenges require students from TK through sixth grade to learn new tools and make models.
“I love fighting against standardized education and letting everybody have their own voice and their own method of problem solving,” Racusin said. “The joy on their faces is the absolute best.”
When the artist isn’t leading creative activities in schools or building giant puppets, she may be found at the Cypress Gallery in Lompoc hosting a zine of the month club. Materials are provided for community members to make their own tiny books based on a monthly theme.
“I just wanted to give people a chance to have a regular creative practice with people where you don’t have to come up with what you’re doing,” Racusin said. “You’re not feeling the pressure of having to generate the idea. Everything’s there, and whatever comes through you is what comes through you.”
Reach Staff Writer Madison White at mwhite@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in June 11 – June 18, 2026.
