Manitou Springs’ annual Carnivale, a Mardi Gras-style street parade, is a celebration of the city’s quirky, artistic character. Taking part in this year’s parade were three giant, fully articulated puppets – a pair of 11-foot tall wolves and a 24-foot version of local art legend Charles Rockey – created by Colorado Springs artist Sofia Hernandez Crade.
Originally from Divide, Hernandez Crade graduated from Wisconsin’s Beloit College with a degree in art. While she has worked in a variety of mediums, Hernandez Crade began constructing puppets after the death of her brother, Demitri Crockett, in 2022.
“They still don’t know exactly who killed him,” she said during an interview in her Hillside home, surrounded by kittens and art. “We were all just very obviously devastated when that happened. It was a big turning point in my life, of being like, ‘Okay, I want to really lean into things that give me joy and hopefully give back to the community, and just kind of recenter my life.’ Not that I wasn’t doing things that gave me joy before, but really kind of re-prioritize that. As far as the puppets, it was like, I don’t want to be the person who’s holding myself back from something. Demitri was an amazing musician, and a rapper, and had just unlimited potential – just a great dancer. He could do anything – extremely handsome, beautiful smile, and so I think just to see how many dreams and goals he had that were left unfulfilled, kind of reignited that fire. Not that I had lost it, but it was just a good reminder that obviously nobody’s promised a tomorrow. There’s no reason not to lean into the things that you wanna do and what you wanna get out of life.”
In 2024, Hernandez Crade debuted her puppet of Rockey during the 31st Manitou Springs Carnivale. “Growing up in Colorado, and growing up going to Manitou I would always like look into his studio and was absolutely amazed at how he worked in so many different mediums, and he was just such a larger-than-life, iconic figure, and really sweet and supportive of me and my work too when I was a kid,” she said. “That whole idea [for the puppet] was just the outsized impact that an artist or a creator, creative force, can have on a community. I wanted to choose somebody who was very beloved, was extremely generous, but also could serve to promote that way of thinking of like – if you really let yourself shine brightly in your space or be unabashedly yourself, lean into the things that bring you joy in a way that invites community, even after you pass. The community of Manitou wouldn’t have been the same if Rocky hadn’t had a studio right in the heart of Manitou, you now? I think that piece was definitely about art and community and kind of being that life thread, blood, of creating connection and creating that space that feels like home.”
The wolves were a new piece, made specifically for this year’s parade. “The theme of the parade was ‘All you need is love,’” said Hernandez Crade. “I’ve had a really hard last few years just with family deaths and just a lot of tragedy, in so many different flavors, and so when I was thinking about ‘all you need is love’ I was always thinking about how wolves to me were like the perfect embodiment of that. They mate for life, but then there’s also this tension where they’re keystone species and can move rivers and can completely change ecosystems, and just hold this immense power just by having top predators in our natural lands and steering the deer. They till the soil differently and everything changes, but then at the same point, they are something that people are really afraid of and aren’t without their controversy and they’re like – risk. I was just thinking of love as an analogy for that, of being something that’s so strong, so powerful, so life-giving, but then also never without risk, never without loss. There’s always a balance to nature.”
Hernandez Crade’s puppets are an amalgamation of materials and mediums – wooden frames, mechanical joints and hinges, fabric, plaster, and paint. The end result is the product of her collaboration with a team of other artists and craftspeople. “I’m probably a little bit of a B-type artist, or a little bit sometimes frustrating to work with when it comes to some of the carpenters and stuff, because I tend to just go for things and not necessarily do a ton of like maquettes and little prototypes and things like that,” she said. “I don’t really have a background in engineering or robotics, but it is really fun to kind of twist your brain and be like, ‘Oh, well, how could that move, and how can we mimic nature but also, make it simple so that hopefully the mechanisms will be able to last a long time.’ We’ve used a lot of things – wood, and aluminum, and some steel, which does make the projects very heavy, but also makes them hopefully a little bit more archival.”
The limiting factor for Hernandez Crade is workspace. “This entire house has been a sculpting studio,” she said. “The head barely fit through the door. I made paws, made legs, two tails, two heads. It’s been non-stop sculpting for me, and so this entire living room has just been covered in plaster and different materials as I work until it got so big that they can’t come into the house anymore.”
The wolves are covered in tarps under the carport of her home, and Rockey lives in a storage unit behind Rudy’s Bar-B-Q. “I’ve lost so much money on these projects,” said Hernandez Crade. “Just bringing them to Manitou was $800, and storing them every month, storing Rocky costs hundreds of dollars … My goal is that this year I will break even and maybe even be able to pay myself a tiny, tiny bit. But right now it is very much a passion project.”
Hernandez Crade currently has a GoFundMe page for her puppets, but she also has a business plan for her art. “I’m starting a business and it’s called Colossal Beings,” she said. “I’m hoping that I’ll be able to tour with the puppets and bring them to different events, like go to the RiNo district [in Denver]. I was actually asked by the Southern Ute tribe near Durango to start teaching puppet workshops and do a puppet for them every year, and then I’m also going to be doing another puppet for Green Mountain Falls with the kids in their class in the next few months.”
