It might be a little soon

. . . for Halloween festivities to be well under way, but I hear people talking about it and see them getting excited already, and it reminds me how much I love Halloween. In preemptive celebration I'm going to start posting costumes I've worn, and for the most-part made.

Kicking it off is Jack Skellington from Halloween 2005:

Seeing as I was even skinnier back then, I made for a pretty convincing skeleton. That and a vertical pinstripe can be very slimming.













Here's another shot of me lamenting:

More costumes to be posted before this year's Hallows, but now the main dilemma is coming up with this years costume and finding the time to put it together.

I'll be attending a Mad-scientist/Sci-Fi party so at least I have some guidelines to start from.

I can't wait!

Moving right along

Because I have yet to post anything text-based, I thought I'd put up a poem. Here's one that I concocted in a Texas airport on my way down to Guatemala last summer (2009). I was inspired by a man I saw who seemed to be . . . bitterly uninspired.

_______________________

Lump

Oh here comes Mr. Toad.

Gullet drooped like dripping tallow,

Little leering nodes,

And skin like soap eroded—shallow pits of sickly pallor—

And his knuckles knots of rope.

His eyes spit mist of swollen sorrow

All across your toes.

No taller than your feet he grows.

No innocence he knows.

Slack-jawed staring, hardly caring

What bones he cracks or brains he lacks.

His smugness stays intact

As he waddles through his woes,

Bottled in his mottled clothes

Of slimy sin and salty grins.

Oh why so bitter, grim Sir Toad?

The loads you bear are paltry, hardly fair

To call them grandiose.

They’re composed of your own shyness,

Squinting faces of the self you loathe.

How can you dare to hate us so when you were born a fetid soul?

Redemption thrown through pleading windows, that’s the fate you chose.

__________________________

I'm going to go get a glass of juice. Cheers.

-T

Apparently pinching doesn't work

Last night I had a dream where my teeth were falling out. It's one I have fairly consistently, and as a result, I became aware this time that it was likely unreal. In the dream I began to pinch myself with increasing force, but nothing happened and the dream proceeded as normal. When I woke up it took me a while to remember that it had happened, but I seem to have lost a little faith in reality.

Moving on. Here's a sculpture I did last February (2010). I didn't have anything in mind when I started making it, so its form was plucked from the aether and surprised me as it manifested.

Maybe one day it will be painted, and as long as we're dreaming, I'd really like to make a cast of it and make resin replicas. We'll see how that goes.

I only have a little scrap of Sculpey left and I haven't been able to find anywhere to buy more in Arkansas yet, so my sculpting may cease for the time being.

May you always wake up when you want to,

-Theo