I’m not sure I like the term “puppet builder,” a term that seems to be popular at the moment. Making puppets is a craft that is sometimes an art. “Building” infers the laborious construction of something more or less utilitarian and stationary, which doesn’t describe the process of making puppets at all. Take the first definition of “build” in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition:
1 : to form by ordering and uniting materials by gradual means into a composite whole : CONSTRUCT
It may be accurate for a house, dam, or pyramid, I suppose.
The simplest name for the craft and art of making puppets is puppet-making, and those who engage in the activity are puppet-makers. Let’s see the relevant definition of “make” in the same book:
3 a : to bring into being by forming, shaping, or altering material : FASHION
Yes, I think that is a much more satisfactory description. Where the creation of puppets are concerned, I am a maker. Where the construction of puppet stages are concerned, however, I am indeed a builder, but that is a subject for another article.