AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) – The back room of Keith Bailey’s Harrisburg home is filled with fabric in an array of colors and materials.
File cabinets and drawers keep spheres, eyes and other items that, with a little of Bailey’s imagination applied, become puppets that can smile, squint, and smirk.
Bailey is just beginning to make puppets again, when he’s not busy creating detailed birdhouses out of polyethylene. For most of his career he built mascots.
Bailey moved from Texas to Augusta with his family in 1971, when his father accepted a position as pastor of National Hills Baptist Church. Bailey opened a tropical fish store across the street, but in the back he began creating puppets for the church’s children’s program.
“I never considered myself a fine artist,” he said.