Grizzly Bear Mask

 

 

Bonus!

Coyote Mask Refined

Did a little bit of refining of proportions since I last showed him...

 

Mountain Lion Mask

 

Coyote Mask

Coyote -- wire, paper mache and paper clay.

Fuzzies in Vital Strides Trailer

From a few years ago -- three fuzzies featured in a trailer for Vital Strides made by Dylan McLaughlin.
Vital Strides Trailer 1 from Dylan McLaughlin on Vimeo.

More Fuzzy Appearances

From a hip-hop show last spring -- incredibly blurry performance photos!

The low light and fog machine really didn't help.  But they actually looked really cool, especially Ginger, in white.  She took her hood down right away and it looked awesome.  But they were almost over heated by the end of the thing.

And this summer 3 fuzzies stared in a promo for an event at IAIA (Institute of American Indian Arts).  Still have to get a file of the video from Dylan, but here's a few photos of us in the tall grass.  This was the first time I'd worn one of the costumes for more than a few minutes.

That's me in red and Caity in blue.

Rebecca in black.  Pretty sure there are more pictures.  I'll add them when I locate them.  I totally love how they look with the little human heads sticking out the top.  The white fuzzy also appeared at Recycle Santa Fe, as worn by David.  Apparently he had a great chase going with a mob of children.  These things are always a huge hit.  So funny...

Close-ups of Gown Lady Top

Because you can't make out much in the other pictures, here's the Gown Lady top, on it's own...

In progress -- missing some lace on one side...

It looked pretty funny from the back.  You can see that I turned a pre-made bodice around for the base of the dress.  Also, our fancy Rococo lady wore jeans underneath.  Man that wig is hideous...

And just because it's funny...

Her wig was elaborately decorated and I made her a choker... which you probably couldn't see when she was up in the rafters.

More Caterpillar Pictures

From my last day working on it...

That's Marcus behind the costume...

And here's me wearing the hood after enlarging it (but before painting the front part).

Yikes! I swear I didn't normally look so emo last summer...

Costumes for Children's Theater at SFPA

I've been conned (several times now) into making costumes for the children's theater program at Santa Fe Performing Arts. They always ask me to make something really weird and I love a challenge, which is why I always agree to do it, but at some point during the construction the madness sets in... Right now it's all volunteer work, which is what makes it especially hard to do considering the hours I put into it. Nevertheless, I feel like it's through challenges like these that I actually grow, and thus, am able to make more complicated constructions. Still, with the time and budget constrains, (and never really being able to do an actual fitting), it's extremely hard to test anything out before I have to just jump right in, which adds another level of difficulty. I like to try things out...

Anyway, the latest play was Alice in Wonderland. I agreed to make the caterpillar and the cheshire cat, which wasn't actually in the script but made a few cameos, ambling wordlessly across the stage. (I was also asked to make the griffin and the Tweedles. The madness only goes so far...)

Here's the caterpillar...

They curled the antenna, which I'm not too fond of...

And here it is on stage...

I used paint to give it the color, which worked well, but apparently wore off on the underside of the tail...

I actually was thinking about this one too sculpturally -- it looks best from the side and back, which you seldom see in a play... I would do it differently if I were to do it again.

The caterpillar was about as straight forward as can be expected, but the cat was made considerably more complicated by having to be broken up into four costumes (gotta get as many kids on stage as often as possible). I really had no idea what to do with that. The director envisioned some ball-like constructions that the kids could wear, with floppy limbs and a tail hanging off. She pictured them crouching. The idea of constructing spherical shaped costumes to be worn while a crouching seemed like a nightmare to me, so I ended up using their height differences and limbs and kept them all standing.

Head

Bodies/Legs

Tail

The pieces are pretty weird, but it does give the impression of a cat when assembled...

Unfortunately this was the best shot I got of them on stage

Pretty weird, but the crowd seemed to think it was hilarious.

I also made a few things for the previous production, Tom Sawyer. In another attempt to get more kids on stage, I was asked to make two bush costumes. Having come off the Meow Wolf play and with no budget, my head immediately went to the box of left over green plastic bags sitting in our laundry room. With Brandon's amazing help, we tore the bags into shreds, I stitched them into bundles and glued them onto what are essentially sacks with sleeves and face holes. I would have done the arms, too, but we ran out of bags.

I missed taking pictures during the actual show but got Caity to put on one of the costumes after we watched Alice. She was excited that she happened to be wearing green jeans.

Front, standing

Back, crouching

In Tom Sawyer, the kids who wore these laid on stage as set pieces and when they finally got up and moved there was a bit of twittering from the crowd. They then gave Tom a hug.

Must remember if I do this again -- kids are really hard on costumes. It was astonishing how quickly things had deteriorated after just a few performances. Fortunately, that's pretty hard to notice from 20 ft away. I love the graciousness of costuming.

Dancing Fuzzies

Some video of the fuzzies at the dance party last night. Their dance was really fun and everyone ate it up. I even got to dance with two of them myself after I turned the camera off -- more fun that I could have imagined.

DJing by the amazing Dirt Girl.

sheesh... bad video quality...

The Moon Is To Live On -- Gown Lady

Perhaps the most fun costume from The Moon is to Live on by Meow Wolf.

When Caity told me about this idea and asked for my help with the costumes, I couldn't resist. The concept was a 12ft tall women wearing a dress with a giant skirt. She would enter and stand at center stage and her dress would open revealing a tree trunk instead of legs, her skirt becoming the canopy of the tree.

Gown Lady, as she was eventually called, got scaled back quite a bit. She was a little under 12ft tall with a tree trunk, but we had to give up on filling the skirt with leaves. Still, I got to make a great Rococo top to the dress. The main part of the skirt was made from a parachute. It was my initial idea and worked really well. Unveiling her was always fun. No one knew what to make of it.

The trunk was made on a ladder by Sean. The ladder was on a pallet on wheels and the whole deal was surprisingly stable, if a little squeaky.

Benji dressed as a fop and introduced her in a mix of about 4 different languages. The weirdest part is that I think he said the same thing every night.

Worn by the lovely Kirstiann.

The lighting was so weird that it was hard to get good pictures. Also, Kirsti's head was up so high that none of the lights really reached her.

But that wig looked pretty cool in the black light.

See the full flickr set from the play here.

The Moon Is To Live On -- "Frustrated" Dancers

More from The Moon is to Live On by Meow Wolf...

These were the last costumes I made, and oddly, I'm kind of most impressed with them because they worked perfectly for the dance, which I didn't see prior to designing the costumes. They were little swing dresses, cinched with a draw string at the neck and had long straight-jacket like arms -- the dance was meant to illustrate the wife character's decent into paranoia and craziness. I guess...

I ended up having to make hoods last minute, which was a little frustrating because they ending up looking like something the Scarecrow would wear.

Each of the costumes were covered in tangled yarn, which got more and more tangled during every dance. I wasn't sure about it at first, but it ended up looking pretty neat.

It was a great and dynamic dance. Not the best pictures. I'm hoping some video surfaces soon.

See the full flickr set from the play here.

The Moon Is To Live On -- Memory Tapes Dancers

More costumes from Meow Wolf's The Moon is to Live On.

These costumes were for a short dance. Half were black on one side, white on the other. The other, white and black. I made the patterns and was able to get Kirstiann and Brandon to do a lot of the work -- they did a great job. The garments were painted after construction.

Not the best pictures, but there's 3000+ from the show. Might be something better in David's collection.

See the full flickr set from the play here.