 "JINGLES" Karen Zuech Past "Boss-Clown " |
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| Profile of Karen Zuech, Proud Member of the Clown Alley of London |
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| Karen’s clowning career emerged 11 years ago out of a Circus Adventure theme party that her company, Children’s Adventures, provided for a youngster. She enjoyed herself so much that she began doing clown parties as a result and became a whiteface clown named Jingles. She started by sewing bells on her outfit and buying a collection of bells to | ||||||||||||||||||
| make a bell band. Mother Goose, Fairy Godmother, Karen the Magic Lady and Karen the Pirate are some of her other characters besides Jingles. Karen is also wife, mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother. She says she is 49 and holding - when asked what she is holding she said eight. Now, now, readers, stop adding! | ||||||||||||||||||
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There are many things that contributed to her development as a clown. She first began by reading books and then thanks to a clown she met at Kid’s Expo (J.R , who was our featured clown in October) she learned there were clown magazines, conventions, and organizations! A member of the first clown school here in London, she continued to learn through attending many conventions and workshops as well as from the best teacher, trial and error. Magic, balloons, puppets, stories and music are a few of the things that Karen uses herself although Children’s Adventures contracts with other performers such as | |||||||||||||||||
| clowns, balloon sculptors, face painters, fantasy and fairy tale characters, to name a few. She is an excellent ventriloquist who is self taught and she teaches others such crafts as balloon sculpting, facepainting, puppetry as well as being a mentor for new clowns and "boss clown" (president) of the Clown Alley of London for 2002-2003. | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Looking at Karen’s career history will give you a hint as to why she does what she does so well. She was a school teacher for 7 years and a supply teacher for 3 years for Grade 1 students. She won many prizes and travelled to many places such as Hawaii, Bermuda, Banff, Hollywood, and Spain as she climbed up the ladder to area manager in the Sarah Coventry business where she did motivational speaking, | ||||||||||||||||||
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recruiting, commentating on fashion shows, and supplying jewelery to the Miss Teens’ and Miss Canada pageants. When Sarah Coventry went bankrupt, (not due to Karen), she sold a line of cosmetics briefly, then was store manager at Pennington’s Warehouse for a year. After she quit there to raise her family, she began sewing and having birthday parties for her children. People liked the parties so much they convinced Karen to make this her business and hence Children’s Adventures was started. Karen’s favourite funny person is Carol Burnett because of her humor and all the different characters she played. Hmmmm, read paragraph one again! Clowning has allowed Karen to be of service to corporations and parents and she has been welcomed into the homes and hearts of many. She loves working with children, making them smile and laugh. However, everyone including Karen has had bad experiences. | |||||||||||||||||
| She is thankful that hers have been few and far between. Her worse experience is described as "the party from hell". The birthday boy was "one holy terror" who threw her stuff on the floor, stepped on Jingles’ clown shoes and tried to knock stuff out of her hands. Luckily there was also a face painter there who intercepted and held the boy so Jingles could finish the show! To compensate for these experiences, she says her rewards are many and it was difficult for her to choose one of her favourites so she was allowed to pick two! One was doing a birthday party for a little 3 year old and being loved so much that she wanted a Jingles doll so Jingles can live with her. Jingles has been invited back for 4 more birthdays and will probably be invited for the wedding! Another favourite is being Barney for a little 2 year old who had cancer. She enjoyed her | ||||||||||||||||||
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| party but 6 months later was hospitalized. When her mother asked "Guess who’s here?" meaning a family member, the little girl said "Barney". So the mom phoned Barney who came to the hospital and visited her, holding and singing to her up to the time of her death. | ||||||||||||||||||
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Jingles' advice for new clowns is learn to be the best clown you can be: go to conventions, join an Alley, watch movies and other clowns perform, don’t give up if you have a bad experience, and practice, practice, practice. She thinks that a Clown Alley is a great way to promote the art of clowning and watch new clowns develop. It is a place where you are not alone but can share ideas and brainstorm together as well as laugh and have some fun. Her hopes for the alley’s future is to see the membership grow, be able to host our own conventions, run more training classes, and get into London hospitals and nursing homes. She must also want us to be the Alley with the most fit clowns as she leads us in a good round of belly laughing at each meeting to help us all lose weight! |
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| Interviewed
and submitted by Judy "GIGI" Carscadden - November 2002. |
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