Anne Sawyer-Aitch

Anne Sawyer navigates the glorious, raggedy edges of life through art and the written word. She is a puppeteer, author/illustrator, and arts educator. For many years she has worked with organizations such as Heart of the Beast, Artstart, and the stilt group Chicks on Sticks. Anne produces her own shows under the banner of Magic Lantern Puppet Theater, and while she identifies as a puppetry artist, she works in many mediums: felting, painting, mask-making, embroidery, sculpting, performing, stilting, and the written word. To date, Anne has created three picture books: Nalah and the Pink Tiger and Nalah Goes to Mad Mouse City, and Mars on Life. She has been lucky enough to create commissioned puppet works for the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Shadows of the Floating World), MacPhail Center for Music (Petrushka) and Gustavus Adolphus College (Measure for Measure). Her work has received support from MRAC, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Jim Henson Award. She directs the annual Kalevala puppet pageant for the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center every year. Prior to the pandemic, Anne also found great fulfillment teaching visual art to adults with disabilities at Lifeworks Day Centers in Brooklyn Park and Eagan, where she was the arts facilitator from January, 2017 until March, 2020.