Category: Trevor

Art.

“Real Art”

 

For the second time in my life, I find myself making a Transi tomb lid.   As people are always curious what I’m working on, and I share pictures, I’m once again struck at the visceral change in reactions to this work compared to many of my others. 

 

“Whoa, this is REAL ART”

“I had no idea you could really sculpt”.

If I actually point out an old piece, I get something akin to “That is just Halloween stuff, THIS is ART.”

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Well, now what?

So often in this social media world, we only present the perfect picture.

Life is not perfect. Nor is art.

And while I could wax poetic on how strange it is I find it that THIS particular project seems to register with (“normal”) people as “art” much more frequently than my more random projects, I’m also well aware that many folks in Halloween circles look at it and wonder how it’s even possible.

Today I present an utter failure for all to see.

The whole idea behind revisiting Trevor was to improve and learn from 2012. And it certainly started out well.

I wanted to get most of the body sculpted this time prior to gluing the form to the lid. That presented many struggles with Trevor 1.0, who was glued down really early in the project.

And, Trevor’s sculpture of the body has gone well not being tied down to a lid, but it was time to get him attached so I know how much of the legs were going to be hidden by various features.

The plan was simple, build a bed out of foam underneath Trevor. Use the plastic to protect him, then I could glue him down to the now form fitted foam bed.

Well…it didn’t work out that way. I went in knowing the foam needed moisture to cure…So prepped by spraying some in under the plastic. Well, the edges cured, formed an air tight barrier, and the pressure returned the center of the mass back to liquid, deflating my form fitting endeavors. I then attempted to punch a few holes in hopes the foam would re-expand…nope, still liquid. Now I was faced with a potential disaster of a mess.

Well, it’s better to cure the foam, so I pulled Trevor off, placed damp paper towels over the liquid and hoped for the best..

It swelled and ballooned and is now a giant mound that is no longer form fit. You can see normal cure on the edge, and then the liquified then solidified section here.

So…I’m going to have to cut all that off and try again…The question is what to try.

What I do know is it’s not picture perfect. It might get there, but these little troubles are all part of the experience, and we really shouldn’t hide them.

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Looking forward by looking back.

Couple things first…

Just performed more than a dozen automagical updates to the site, so some things might not be quite up to snuff. I’ve been squashing what bugs I’ve found and some of the things look a little ‘off’, and I’m trying to locate that problem in the new code.

Plotting the course for 2013 started early. Extremely early. Starting January of 2012, we made the decision that 2012’s graveyard addition was going to be a one-off, and 2013 was going to be something else. So, in the plan with building Trevor was, specifically, NOT KEEPING HIM. This was a bit harder than I thought, though. Even though that was my plan, when I had him mostly finished around July 2012, I was really thinking maybe we should do it 2 years…

But we held firm, and Trevor is sold and gone. Best part is he’s not that far, so we’ll get to stop and say ‘hi’ to him next year none the less.

With the graveyard retired, it was time to look towards 2013. I sat down and critiqued every year. What went well, what didn’t. Where I went wrong with the yard.

We came up with a common theme of the mistakes I make: TOO MUCH, TOO CROWDED.

Taking my 3 favorite years:

#3, 2012

2012 was incredibly fun. Easily the best year for the whole pumpkin carving party, we learned to SPREAD THEM OUT better than in 2011. I think we hit the magic number, too at ~115 pumpkins. More is going to be getting into that crowded territory.

The only reason this doesn’t rate higher is I’m not a huge fan of the whole graveyard thing as it being too ‘ordinary’. Even when you make a transi tomb.

#2, 2007

2007 was the culmination of a dream of mine. We started with the whole skulls on a stick routine way back in 2005, but it was 2007 that we really EMBRACED it. 100 skulls, 75 stakes made one of the most fantastically original scenes I’ve ever managed.

Hard to believe I messed with it so much in 2008, trying to cram in over 300 skulls, 200 stakes, Fred, and a hut into that same space. Once again too much.

#1: 2010.

The Harvest was an accident. We had worked HARD and spent most of the year working towards a whole temple theme transition in 2010. Then God decided it sucked and destroyed most of it when the wind took out our gazebo and most the year’s props with it.

I think it was August and I was left sitting with absolutely nothing, wondering what I could possibly bring together for Halloween in time, and not wanting to do a rehash of those skulls again when someone on the Halloween Forum decided to poke fun at “people who only put out some corn stalks and pumpkins”. As if that were some lower form of decorating. I took it as a challenge to make ‘nothing but corn stalks and pumpkins’ interesting. 60 pumpkins was too much for me, so we invited some neighbors to help, and the annual harvest party was born.

2013, I think it’s time to merge these two basic themes together. Return to our roots. Mix some of the spiked skulls into the corn. Spike some pumpkins like we did in 2009 while we’re at it…Look back.