Professional puppeteers Lyon Hill and Kimi Maeda took their time falling in love with the art of puppetry.

“Drawing was always the core for me,” said Hill, a Columbia native who studied studio art at USC and continues to paint and show his work. “I went from drawing, to creating comic books, to painting, to doing figurative sculpture, to making puppets.”

Maeda recently completed an MFA in theater at Carolina, but as an undergraduate at Williams College in her native Massachusetts she studied studio art and biology. A job in a scene shop introduced her to the theatrical arts.

Today, Hill and Maeda are full-time staff members at Columbia Marionette Theatre. The theater offers Saturday shows like this fall’s The Little Mermaid, evening programs for adults, and birthday parties. Now artistic director, Hill has been with the theater for 10 years and is involved in virtually every aspect of the theater’s productions, including making puppets and working them during performances.

Learning to work the puppets is a constant process, Hill said, and there is a lot of trial and error involved.

To illustrate, he brings out Barkley, a four-legged puppet he has worked for weeks to perfect. Hill gently grips a wooden control bar and begins to twist its strings. The puppet’s mouth opens, a pink dog-tongue flaps out, and in an instant there emerges an energetic, lovable hound.

Maeda is an award-winning scene designer whose work is just as impressive.

“I was trained to be a stage and costume designer— I also worked in the scene shop while I was at Carolina—and I’m really using those skills here,” she said.

“Our productions are original adaptations of classic stories or new works we’ve written,” Hill said. “We make puppets using wood and other materials. We record an all-digital soundtrack, including character voices and sound effects. We rehearse for hours, moving the puppets in response to the soundtrack. Timing is critical: a puppet’s movements must match a corresponding noise on the tape.”

Hill and Maeda also are part of the theater’s traveling troupe. One traveling show, Litter Trashes Everyone, is funded by Palmetto Pride. The puppeteers perform it 210 times a year in schools across the state.