By Cait Heiderman

At the University of Maryland, the whimsical career of alumnus Jim Henson lives on through Henson Week, a campus-wide celebration UMD Arts for All and the Office of Innovation presents.

This year, the theme of Henson Week is “Create. Make. Play.,” with more than 50 events for the campus community to engage in to honor the creativity and experimentation that defined the careers of Henson and his wife Jane.

“Our ultimate goal is for folks, students, faculty, staff, community … to identify their own creative interest,” UMD’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Catalyst Sammy Popat said.

On Monday, Studio A in Adele H. Stamp Student Union held a public viewing of a mural Henson painted during his time as a student. A Hyattsville neighbor commissioned the artwork, which depicts the story of a matador and a bull.

Henson likely didn’t title the mural himself because it was a commissioned artwork, according to Tara Youngborg, manager of the STAMP Gallery and Studio A.  

Stylistically, this oil-painted mural is considered a unique outlier to his other artworks, according to Youngborg.

“We’ve also had an appraiser … look at our whole collection … and she has said that this is kind of unique in terms of Jim Henson memorabilia,” Youngborg said.

The mural offers a glimpse into the world Henson created long before gaining international recognition for projects like “The Muppets,” “Sesame Street” and “Fraggle Rock.”

“The way he’s using color and texture is really important, and that also is something that’s really important in puppeteering,” she said.

Youngborg shared that the faces of the bulls received praise from mural viewers for their detailed facial expressions.

“They feel the most Muppet-like to me,” she said. “I think that he’s put the most kind of personality into them.”

Henson’s time at UMD introduced him to people and artistic mediums that would later become important to his career. While taking a puppetry course, he met his wife, Jane Nebel, who became his early professional partner.

“[Henson] was on a local television station doing commercials,” Popat said. “He realized that if you were to put puppets on television, you had to innovate.”

Henson and Nebel won their first Emmy Awards in 1959 for “Sam and Friends,” a five-minute puppet show that aired on WRC-TV, a local Washington, D.C., network.

Drew Barker, a performing arts librarian at the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library, credits Henson’s success to putting his heart in his work.

“The man truly respected childhood and how important it is to everyone,” Barker said. “I think his legacy has really been determined by the impact he made on children’s imaginations … adults too.”

Throughout his illustrious career, Henson used his innovation skills to elevate the medium of puppetry on screen. He worked with directors like George Lucas, who used Henson as a consultant on the building of the Yoda puppet used in the “Star Wars” films.

“I compare him to Shakespeare because he not only had a strong artistic vision, but he also had the business acumen to make his vision happen, just like Shakespeare did with the Globe,” Barker said.

Henson joined Saturday Night Live during its first season in 1975. He created an adult puppetry skit called “The Land of Gorch,” with hopes he would establish a career outside children’s television. After 11 sketches, Henson departed the late-night sketch show following poor audience reviews and creative differences with SNL writers.

“He was fearless from someone who wanted to dabble in a lot of different things,” Popat said. “The other part of being fearless is that he failed a lot … he created work that was experimental.”

For UMD, continuing to celebrate Henson’s legacy also includes encouraging students to find their own creative voices, according to Popat.

In honor of Henson Week, the College of Arts & Humanities is piloting a mini-grant funding opportunity that, if awarded, will provide up to $500 in seed funding to students, student groups or staff who want to explore an idea or initiate a project that sparks creativity or positively impacts UMD.

“Henson Week is really about giving us a moment to reflect in terms of our childlike wonder and help us to spark that curiosity that when we were younger, maybe we were more fearless,” Popat said. “We want to give people an opportunity to try new things.”

Featured Image: Jim Henson’s mural displayed in Studio A in the Adele H. Stamp Student Union on Sept. 21. Photo by Charlotte Florin.