Really, the outside appearances of Mimi Herbert's book can be judged.
The 254-page "Voices of the Puppet Masters, The Wayang Golek Theater of Indonesia" is written by a Paoenian Springs resident who spent five years in Indonesia and 11 years researching and writing about Indonesian puppet masters.
The graphite drawings of the puppets the puppet masters used were done by Herbert, same with some of the photographs of the artists and their art.
The subject and setting of the book relates to the artist/author's master of arts in South Asian Studies, earned in 1961. Herbert studied Hindu epics as part of her program at the University of Pennsylvania. Likewise, "the majority of the repertoire is based on a Hindu religious epic," she said.
Herbert has another master of fine arts in life drawing and printmaking, earned in 1983, and a bachelor of arts in theater from 1958. In 1964, Herbert was on her way to earning a doctorate degree in Asian studies, when she decided to focus on sculpture and printmaking over a scholarly life. She taught college-level drawing for three years and has shown her work since 1965.
"I feel this book is all of her loves coming together," said Herbert's 30-year lifelong friend Anna Otchin of Maryland. "There's theater, art and Asian studies, of course."
HERBERT WROTE about a 600-year-old art and theater form, most popular in Java, Indonesia.
"There wasn't much research done on these because it was more of a folk art," Herbert said.
Puppet masters can be shamans and many are performers. They carve and manually manipulate three-dimensional wooden rod puppets at traditional performances in the Indonesian villages, such as weddings, naming ceremonies and other events, and recently in theaters and entertainment centers.
"It's a beautiful way of presenting the art. She preserved it in a really beautiful accomplished book," Otchin said, adding that the old puppet masters are dying off.
Herbert's book "takes the reader into a world where we get a glimpse of this unique theater that combines puppets, music and dance, and most of all the puppet master," said Reston resident Marion Meader, a friend of Herbert's since 1969.
Some of the puppet masters are religious. Others have become rich "superstars" in the past 25 years.
"They are very powerful politically," Herbert said. "The politicians like to have puppet masters on their side ... They are influential because the theater is so popular."
HERBERT PLANNED to write an article about the puppet masters, formally called dalang and the puppets wayang. Her husband John Herbert, a planning commissioner for Loudoun County, gave her a puppet before they went to Indonesia in 1990.
"I met one of the puppet masters, and I was fascinated," Herbert said. "The importance of this is like Shakespeare, fairy tales, Bible stories and soap operas all rolled up into one with local politics thrown in."
Herbert joined a writer's group in Indonesia to learn how to write. She noticed a "big crossover" between art and writing. "When you're working on a work of art, like a print or drawing, you have to bring everything up. You try to work on it simultaneously all at once. ... You have to see the big picture," she said. "I wouldn't have been able to write this book without that group. I was the greenest member."
Herbert was learning the language when she met Nur Rahardjo, an Indonesian woman, at a party. Herbert's use of the Indonesian language was not good, she said, nor was Rahardjo's use of English.
Herbert and Rahardjo of Bangdung, West Java collaborated in conducting thousands of hours of discussions and interviews with the puppet masters, then translated and interpreted the interviews. All but two of the puppet masters spoke Indonesian.
"We were both good at it, but we couldn't do it without one another," Herbert said.
THE INTERVIEWS were organized into 10 chapters, each requiring five to six interviews with each of the puppet masters. "It took awhile for them to let me in their lives, but they all did," Herbert said. As she wrote, she wanted to keep the voices of the puppet masters their own, she said.
"It's their story. It's not a dissertation," she said. "There is no thesis. ... I didn't have an agenda in my head. I wasn't proving anything."
Herbert remained in Indonesia until 1995 to finish most of the research, returning in 1998 to continue her work.
"It's a non-materialistic world," Herbert said. "The idea of spirits and of the power of the puppet and of the puppet master is very common, even among educated people. It permeates the Javanese culture."
Herbert and her husband have been married for 42 years. They have two grown daughters they raised in Reston from 1967 to 1981. Herbert grew up in Arlington. She and John Herbert have lived in India, Pakistan, Haiti, Brazil, El Salvador and New Zealand.
"I enjoy being with her because of the intensity of her interests and accomplishments. She's almost a Renaissance person," Meader said.