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Groundbreaking puppet-maker and performer Michael McCormick died May 24 while working in his sa国际传媒官网网页入口 studio. He was just three weeks shy of his 86th birthday.

McCormick is best remembered for helping to design and build many of the iconic creatures seen in Jim Henson鈥檚 鈥淭he Dark Crystal鈥� (1982) and 鈥淟abyrinth鈥� (1986) and George Lucas鈥� 鈥淩eturn of the Jedi鈥� (1983), among other films. For 鈥淭he Dark Crystal,鈥� McCormick worked on the fabrication team that made the vulture-like Skeksis monsters, and for 鈥淟abyrinth,鈥� he built the prototype for the gentle giant known as Ludo, designed the armor for all of the goblin characters and helped construct David Bowie鈥檚 costumes. He was among the original puppeteers and sculptors for such memorable 鈥淩eturn of the Jedi鈥� characters as Salacious Crumb, Sy Snootles and Ephant Mon.

At the time of his death, McCormick was hard at work on several new projects. He was making puppets for an independent film series, 鈥淧ositive Vibes Only,鈥� with sa国际传媒官网网页入口-based filmmaker Ian Rafael Black and had plans to revive his long-running puppet show, 鈥淧unch and Judy鈥� 鈥� an adaptation of the 17th-century original 鈥� with his son, Sean McCormick. The father-son team was scheduled to perform 鈥淧unch and Judy鈥� at the Tinkertown Museum on the Fourth of July.

Born in New York City, McCormick moved to Los Alamos with his family at the age of 5, when his father came to the state to work on the Manhattan Project toward the end of World War II. He graduated from sa国际传媒官网网页入口鈥檚 Highland High School and attended the University of New Mexico, initially as a psychology student, before transitioning into art.

鈥淗e was studying psychology to become an art therapist for a long time,鈥� Sean McCormick said of his father. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 how he started doing the 鈥楶unch and Judy鈥� show, because it came out in his therapy. He was going through memories of seeing that show when he was a kid.鈥�

鈥淧ositive Vibes Only鈥� director Black said McCormick brought psychological depth to all of his characters. 

鈥淢ike was really big on the idea of puppetry as therapy,鈥� Black said. 鈥溾�� Big, heady concepts were very important to us. All of our talks returned to philosophy, psychology and mythology 鈥� and the strings that tie all of them together.鈥�

Black and McCormick first worked together in 2008 on a film called 鈥淧ersonal Growth鈥� 鈥� a dark comedy about a cancerous tumor that sings. Black said he considered McCormick not only a collaborator but a father figure and a friend.

McCormick mentored generations of New Mexico-based artists, including the Emmy-winning director and puppeteer Devon Hawkes Ludlow, who had grown up admiring McCormick's work. He later met McCormick at Meow Wolf, and the two made and operated puppets for a Carlos Medina music video, which Ryan Thompson directed in 2017. Ludlow and McCormick collaborated again in 2019 on Ludlow's punk puppet musical, "The Love That Would Not Die."

鈥淗is work was technically astute, but at the same time imaginative and wild,鈥� Ludlow said. 鈥溾�� He was a really skilled and talented sculptor and puppeteer, but he was also really interested in the profound psychological depths of the form, so our conversations usually revolved around Freudian and Jungian psychology.鈥�

Ludlow said he could tell that McCormick enjoyed working with younger creators just as much as they valued working with him.

鈥淲ith our anarchic punk films, he really just wanted to be imbibing that spirit,鈥� Ludlow said. 鈥淎nd, for us, he played that mentor role of 鈥榓uthorizing鈥� our work, in a sense. Seeing him be sort of astounded by what we were doing really verified that we were doing something astounding.鈥�

Beyond these unofficial mentorships, McCormick also served as an art professor for many years. In 1963, he joined the faculty of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe and ran the school鈥檚 sculpture program. A number of his students, including Kevin Red Star (Crow Tribe of Montana), went on to have very successful art careers. McCormick also taught puppetry for film and television at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces until his retirement from university teaching in 2008.

The artist Dennis Larkins, best known as an illustrator for the Grateful Dead, was McCormick鈥檚 friend for nearly 60 years.

鈥淚 had come to Santa Fe in 1967, just out of art school, and that was the beginning of my painting career. A mutual friend of McCormick鈥檚 鈥� introduced us. We became immediate friends, and our friendship lasted all this time,鈥� Larkins said.

鈥淔or the people who knew him 鈥� and not just knew of him, and his impact on the world stage, which was significant鈥� he was magnetic,鈥� Larkins said. 鈥淚鈥檓 sure anyone who came within his orbit had to be incredibly impressed, and perhaps even moved or inspired, by his creative force. 鈥� Michael was a shining example of someone who spent all of his time and energy focused on the creative process, and on his interactions with the world around him.鈥�

sa国际传媒官网网页入口-based stage magician Tony Comito was another of McCormick鈥檚 longtime friends. The two met in the mid-1970s and collaborated on one of the first iterations of McCormick鈥檚 鈥淧unch and Judy鈥� show, which they performed out of a converted bread truck across northern and central New Mexico. Comito describes their crew, which included Tinkertown creator Ross Ward, as a ragtag group of hippies with a love of street theater. Despite his freewheeling ethos, McCormick was also a perfectionist when it came to puppet design, according to Comito.

鈥淗e was a sculptor, and so he came at puppets in a different way 鈥� very professional and very extraordinary,鈥� Comito said. 鈥溾�� He took it to the next level. Those puppets were actually sculptures, and the process was quite sophisticated.鈥�

The filmmaker Linda Carfagno had been filming McCormick for a forthcoming documentary, 鈥淏lueprint: The Genius of Production Design from Silent Film to AI,鈥� which she is hoping to complete later this year. She described McCormick as a very funny, gregarious and engaging storyteller but also someone who wasn鈥檛 afraid to explore the darker aspects of life.

鈥淗e told me there鈥檚 power in shadows,鈥� Carfagno said. 鈥淪hadows bring you in. 鈥� Shadows are interesting. There鈥檚 all kinds of stuff in the shadows. 鈥� And shadows can be a bridge to other worlds.鈥�

In addition to helping revolutionize the world of puppetry, McCormick will be remembered as an integral part of the local arts community.

鈥淥ne of the things that鈥檚 most interesting about him is that he wasn鈥檛 an East Coast or West Coast person. He was a homegrown kind of puppeteer person, which is extra rare, so extra valuable for all of us,鈥� Ludlow said. 鈥溾�� It was very special that he was part of the community鈥� We were very fortunate to have him here.鈥�

Michael McCormick is survived by his wife of 63 years, Linda McCormick, and their son, Sean McCormick.

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the sa国际传媒官网网页入口. He covers visual art, music, fashion, theater and more. Reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com or on Instagram at .