William PK Carter

William PK Carter (she/he/they) is a puppet artist and quilter based in Central Valley, New York. She bridges the puppet and fine art worlds by fabricating wondrous creatures and fantastical musical vignettes that exist at the intersection of queerness and blackness. She received her Bachelor of Science in Studio Art from Skidmore College in 2023, and her work has been exhibited and performed in theaters, galleries, and museums across the country. Notable venues include Puppet Showplace Theater (Brookline, MA), La Mama Experimental Theatre Club (New York, NY), Dixon Place (New York, NY), The Old Stone House of Brooklyn (Brooklyn, NY), The Ritz Theatre (Newburgh, NY), The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery (Saratoga Springs, NY), and The Trout Museum of Art (Appleton, WI). Carter is the recipient of Skidmore College’s President’s Racial Justice Award (2021), the Van Dewater Memorial Award (2022), and the John P. Heins Award: Outstanding Senior Thesis Exhibition (2023). She has just completed her time as part of the 2025 cohort of Puppet Showplace’s Creative Residency for Black Puppeteers (Brookline, MA) and as a resident artist at Ma’s House (Southampton, NY), and is a current fellow at Ann Street Gallery’s Emerging Artist Fellowship (Newburgh, NY). 

Website:
williampkcarter.com

Instagram:
@baeslleaf 

Goal for Residency:

My goal for this residency with LaMama is to create new work that uses beautifully whimsical puppets to explore the disgusting and uncomfortable impact that white supremacy and homophobia have on the Queer Black psyche. Complimenting narratives of a Queer Black experience with natural inspirations and visual language, this work isolates and ostracizes white supremacy as something unnatural- rewriting the narrative that we are taught to believe as truth.