There are times when my art consists of not much more than cooking something interesting with the leftovers in my fridge, or taking photos of paintings I can't seem to finish, and times when all of my creativity is channelled into mom jobs.
This Halloween, like nearly every one before it, was no exception. Halloween prep takes absolute precedence in this house in the weeks before the big night. My daughter, now nearly 13, has placed the spooky night at the apex of her holiday preferences. She is terrified of zombies, but somehow she feels a kinship with those girls with a dark side. I attribute this in part to letting her watch Buffy with me when she was two. The only result of which was how she would declare to all her little friends that vampires are totally not scary, you can just poof them to dust with a sharp stick. In the subsequent years, her fascination with the spooky but cool, dark but funny, has lead to a full on adoration of all things Tim Burton, Neil Gaiman, and the comic book worlds of Lenore, Emily the Strange and more. I dig this about her.
The mainstream vampire movies hold zero appeal to her, the whinny love story with fangs thing so uninteresting, much to my relief. Costumes for that kind of movie are not really that interesting to make anyway. I much prefer the melding of the cute and spook, rather than the bloodshot eyed, palid emaciated look. Looking like a heroin addict is not nearly as appealing a costume as being a kick-ass storybook character with a fuzzy edge. This year the criteria was (from me) to recycle last year's costume, and (from her) to look cool but tough. I wonder what we'll be fabricating next year? In the meantime, I seriously need to shop-vac my studio to get rid of every last bit of fluff from that infernal fun fur, or it's going to end up in every paintings!
This Halloween, like nearly every one before it, was no exception. Halloween prep takes absolute precedence in this house in the weeks before the big night. My daughter, now nearly 13, has placed the spooky night at the apex of her holiday preferences. She is terrified of zombies, but somehow she feels a kinship with those girls with a dark side. I attribute this in part to letting her watch Buffy with me when she was two. The only result of which was how she would declare to all her little friends that vampires are totally not scary, you can just poof them to dust with a sharp stick. In the subsequent years, her fascination with the spooky but cool, dark but funny, has lead to a full on adoration of all things Tim Burton, Neil Gaiman, and the comic book worlds of Lenore, Emily the Strange and more. I dig this about her.
The mainstream vampire movies hold zero appeal to her, the whinny love story with fangs thing so uninteresting, much to my relief. Costumes for that kind of movie are not really that interesting to make anyway. I much prefer the melding of the cute and spook, rather than the bloodshot eyed, palid emaciated look. Looking like a heroin addict is not nearly as appealing a costume as being a kick-ass storybook character with a fuzzy edge. This year the criteria was (from me) to recycle last year's costume, and (from her) to look cool but tough. I wonder what we'll be fabricating next year? In the meantime, I seriously need to shop-vac my studio to get rid of every last bit of fluff from that infernal fun fur, or it's going to end up in every paintings!
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