Craft Around the Country

Wayne White's Fantastical Puppet World Meets the Wild Environs of Meow Wolf

The puppeteer and set designer behind Pee-wee’s Playhouse and The Weird Al Show will debut a new short film at the immersive installation company’s newest location in Los Angeles, slated to open later this year.

By Jacqueline Huynh Young
October 23, 2026

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Photo courtesy of the artist

Brave Ron takes a peak outside of his clubhouse. His whimsical digs will be the main setting for Wayne White's new installation, Brave Ron's Flying Club House, at Meow Wolf in Los Angeles, scheduled to open later this year.

Later this year, immersive installation institution Meow Wolf will open its sixth location in an outdoor mall in Los Angeles.

Wayne White will contribute Brave Ron’s Flying Club House, a new three-minute film for a forthcoming installation at the new space. It’s a return to the handmade world of puppets for the LA-based artist. “It’s sort of like the kids’ show from my subconscious,” he says.

Long before his move into fine art, White spent years designing sets and puppets for children’s television, including Pee-wee’s Playhouse in the 1980s and the high-energy ’90s science program Beakman’s World. He also served as art director for the Smashing Pumpkins’ 1996 music video “Tonight, Tonight,” which won MTV’s Video of the Year and Best Art Direction. Of Brave Ron’s Flying Club House, he says, “It’s like all that experience is kind of stored away, and I’m letting it come out in ways that are surprising.”

Photo courtesy of the artist

A robot arm made from cardboard, watercolor paper, Sculpey, foam core, and foam rubber sits on White’s work table.

His son, artist Woodrow White, is editing the film, which playfully riffs on White’s own journey from Tennessee to Los Angeles through two contrasting worlds: Soddy, a green, pastoral planet based on the backwoods of his home state, and Brave Ron’s Technicolor Fantasy World, which recalls his years working in children’s television.

White builds the hand-and-rod puppets primarily from cardboard and watercolor paper, materials central to his do-it-yourself approach. “The great Red Grooms got me started doing that,” says White, who worked with the multimedia pop artist in the early 1980s. “Just something about it suits me, I guess.”

As of this writing, the film is about two-thirds complete, with parts of the story still taking shape. Working from a rough outline, White is leaving room for discoveries along the way. “The sets and the landscapes start talking back to me and giving me ideas,” he says. “You’re collaborating with this world that you’re making, and it’s telling you what it wants to do.”

For all the work involved, White hopes the result retains the looseness of improvisation. “I’m just entranced by the magic of things coming alive,” he says. “It appears to be playtime, but of course it isn’t. It’s all really hard work. The trick is to make it look like you’re just having the time of your life and you’re sharing your joy with everybody, but the paradox of it is that you suffer.”

Photo courtesy of the artist

An exterior shot of Brave Ron's Flying Club House.

Jacqueline Huynh Young is a Vietnamese American artist and writer based in Los Angeles.

Check out more of Wayne White's work online.

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