Grandma’s alarmingly-wide mouth gapes open as her small body is forcibly crammed into a musty suitcase. A vacancy veils her face like a curtain that has been drawn at a play’s end. Folded one over the other, her bone-thin arms are crossed in a lifeless X. Twisted and contorted, Grandma’s legs are bent in unnatural angles, appearing broken, and her pale pink dress is hiked up further than it should be, revealing her flesh colored panty hose. The tall, bespectacled woman who zipped up the last of Grandma in the grey wheeled luggage looks satisfied, content even. The whole spectacle is downright creepy—to the untrained eye.

“Grandma and I go way back, so I have to be careful when I put her in the suitcase—she’s delicate, created with lots of love.” Lynne Jennings, the lean mop-topped bespectacled blonde who folded Grandma into a pretzel isn’t in the business of harming little old ladies. Jennings, an avid puppeteer, makes a living working with puppets like Grandma. The current Chair of the San Diego Guild of Puppetry, Jennings has designed custom puppets for over 25 years. During her university years at Middlebury College in Vermont, the world of puppetry forged its insentient way into Jennings’ life. A friend who asked her to help maneuver the puppets in a school play probably didn’t realize at the time the influence upon her that the puppets would invariably make—Jennings was hooked.

Jennings asserts the concept of teamwork is essential in the operation of just one puppet, especially for those who have a sense of depth—like grandma. “It takes coordination, improvisation and a common understanding of the role of the puppet and how it fits in with its environment,” Jennings says. “Puppetry is an art, a form of expression.” And Jennings takes her craft seriously; her telling descriptions of her life-long work pop with passion, ripe with a sort of invisible devotion to her inanimate co-characters. Jennings draws inspiration for the creation and movement of her puppets from personal experiences, those persons whose influences upon her have resulted in uncanny, cringe-inducing all-too-real representatives of living lovers, family members and neighbors she’s met along the way.

In the mid ‘90s, Jennings enhanced her understanding of puppetry by learning from inarguably the best in the industry: Jim Henson. In 1994, Jennings studied and performed with the Jim Henson artists at the National Puppetry Conference at the O’Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Conn. Nowadays, Jennings can be found performing in local schools in San Diego as the lead puppeteer and trainer for the Young at Art Puppetry Program, proving that after 25 years of puppetry that puppets aren’t just child’s play.