Louis Johnson wants to start a revolution, or to be more exact a re-love-olution.
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Louis is pronounced "Lou-ey" as in Louis Armstrong and like Armstrong, Johnson hails from Louisiana but he now lives in Mount Isa.
The opportunity to move to Mount Isa came when Louis' Australian wife was made redundant from her job in Dubai and got a job with the North West Health and Hospital Service in Mount Isa.
Louis is an artist and religious education teacher who has become renowned for his imaginative work with puppets in Mount Isa but his background is as a medical artist.
"Before there were computers everything was either photographed or drawn by hand," Mr Johnson said.
"So I started as a medical artist then became an education video game software designer."
The idea of puppets came as a mix of many of Louis' interests.
"I love sculpting so it's kind of a combination of everything I do," he said.
"It's putting everything together and trying to find a non-intrusive way of meeting the needs of the community."
Mr Johnson said puppets were very disarming.
"I can say anything with a puppet," he laughed.
But while his creations like Dr Kevin are entertaining and funny, Mr Johnson says his primary goal is to educate through the school system on the meaning of love.
"When people hear love they think about the passion or the emotional, but my philosophy is that I look at love as a principle," he said.
"At 3am when your son vomits on your Cashmere rug you are not thinking of love as a passion but you will get up and deal with that problem because you love your son."
Mr Johnson says love must be attestable.
"If I say 'I love you' but I don't do anything about it, how is that love?" he said.
"The opposite of love is not hate, it's okay to hate coronavirus or to hate injustice, no, the opposite of love is selfishness."
Mr Johnson said his purpose with the puppets was to show children and adults attestible love.'
"With Dr Kevin talk about examples of those things, he talks about kindness all my puppets do that, Bobby Joe is scientist who talks about the weather, Daisy Doo is a plant who talks about how we treat plants," he said.
"In religious education I teach about a non punitive idea about God but you can't do that without love."
The puppets play an important role in class.
"I used to do ventriloquism but I don't bother with that any more, the kids don't pay attention to me," he said.
"They argue with the puppet!'
His latest RADF grant for $6000 will help him build more puppets through his company, Reloveolution, which aims to create intelligent, non-intrusive social engagement with youth, particularly Indigenous youth, through puppetry.
"Reloveolution is about love as a practical thing, about love as circulation," he said.
Louis took part in the Queensland Music Festival Mount Isa Blast last year with his walking emu costume designed by Barbara Sam and it was an experience he recalls with joy.
:"Having wonderful people around you was incredibly exciting," he said.
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