Diane Salsberg

Diane Salsberg was a Costume Designer for Jim Henson during the 1980's. She began working with the Henson Associates (HA!) team in the late 70's when someone scouted her dolls and soft sculpture work that she had originally been doing for her young son, then later trying to sell/market in stores around Manhattan. Upon bringing in her portfolio to the Muppet Workshop, they were impressed by her design work which consisted of mostly mythical characters (Pegasus, Unicorns, Faeries, Wizards, Mermaids etc..) For her first year, she was given the task of designing arms and legs for an up coming project called "The Dark Crystal" under the leadership of Marianne Harms. For her second year (still working on The Dark Crystal) she was moved on to Costume Design for the film. Doing all the clothing designs for the "Pod People" and the "Mystics." During this time she became quite close with Brian Froud (and wife Wendy) who was the concept and creator of both The Dark Crystal & Labyrinth films. The remain good friends to this day.

After The Dark Crystal, she stayed on with Henson and the NYC team (many had moved over to the UK at that time, since both The Dark Crystal and The Labyrinth were filmed there.) Diane worked on the Muppet Show from then on, doing costume design work. A personal highlight was designing Miss Piggy's wedding dress (made from real Chantilly Lace.) Diane jokingly noted that, "Miss Piggy's wedding dress cost more than mine did!" She did work on Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock & Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas. She also did the design work for the life-size Sesame Street & Muppet Show characters for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (NYC.)

After many years and many transitions (and the untimely death of Jim Henson) Diane grew tired of the commute from New Paltz (in upstate New York) to Manhattan. She opted to take her Design work in a different direction. From there she went on to design the famous Pittsburgh Pirate (Pirate Parrott) life-size mascot. She did costume design for The History Channel, creating crowns resembling that of ancient Kings & Queens.

Currently, Diane lives in Poughkeepsie, New York. From time to time she has taught Puppet making and "Soft Sculpture" classes for Elementary/Middle School students since the late 80's. Students name her "The Muppet Lady."