8 1/2 Balloons with Del Norte DAY 18

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Visit www.gothtober.com and click on DAY 18 for an avant-garde cinematic EVENT!

Spoiler alert: It has BALLOONS. I guess that’s not much of a spoiler, since the word “Balloons” is in the title. Duh.

There’s a Columbian balloon man, and a professional tumbler who looks kind of like a kid… wait… that IS a kid! It’s a kid in Los Angeles!

The score is original, played with a real theremin and real cello. It gets more and more ominous the more you watch, we may never know how that balloon man feels. The alienating effects of modernization are felt in this arresting film, Fellini surely would agree.

For anyone who participates in Gothtober every year, it’s absolutely the kind of pressure some artists dread. Taking part in Gothtober means you are expected to deliver some kind of art, while facing intense public scrutiny, on a constricted schedule, while simultaneously having to deal with your own day-to-day obligations, work and personal relationships! Can you feel the angst?

We think Del Norte had some good fun, with much success!

Day 17 with Christine Panushka

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Visit www.gothtober.com and click on DAY 17 to see animation by world famous animator, Christine Panushka! This piece is called “Greed” it involves some pumpkin-type character/creatures, and a certain dynamic that is all too familiar in today’s society. Perhaps this dynamic has always prevailed, but it does seem that lately it’s more pervasive. However, not to worry, as you can see, greed can only go so far, it has an end, just like everything else. But what happens next? Hmmmm!

This author (Head Candy Corn of Gothtober.com) would like to point out that Christine Panushka has been my mentor for 30 years. The guidance, patience, and teachings from Christine as my instructor and mentor over the years has helped me to be the artist I am today. With Christine’s support, I have grown up to lead and take part in projects that not only push my own quest to learn, but to delight in collaborations that help my fellow artists push themselves to make art.

I am not the only one who feels this way, there are hundreds of us. She has built armies of animators, instructors, artists, and film makers, so here’s a 21 Pumpkin salute from Gothtober to Panushka Power!

Find out more about Christine Panushka by visiting her Wikipedia Page! Wow! 

LA Ghosts for DAY 16

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Day 16 of www.gothtober.com features the night antics of a couple of wayward ghosts on their way to somewhere else. The film is called “Terminus” having to do with the termination of life, along with the terminals we wait in while we’re taking whatever journeys both life and death require of us.

Shot in and around Vernon and 26th St. of Los Angeles, the ghosts make their way in and around the belly of the city. They go a-haunting among diesel engines, intermodal containers, and corridors of active and forgotten tracks.

Julianna Parr does Gothtober artwork under the guise of Danny Torrance, Ichabod Brains, and other pseudonyms. She is head Candy Corn of the Gothtober Countdown Calendar.

Lori Meeker and the Lava Lady for DAY 15

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Visit www.gothtober.com and click on Day 15 and watch this dear sweet tribute to one of LA’s historic eccentric personalities who passed away in September of 2016. It’s Lori Meeker’s puppet vignette about Rae Susan Strauss! Sometimes you’d see her in the crosswalk, never in a rush, gliding past, one of the regulars, always a curious human to witness. She lived in a black lava covered house, thus, her nickname was “The Lava Lady.”

Not many of us understood her, but we liked her. We liked her a lot, she wore her hair in a tall spike, wore bellbottom pants and extremely tall platform shoes. She was a poet. She was many things. Find out more about The Lava Lady by reading this LA Weekly article.

Find out more about the wonderful work of Lori Meeker by visiting her website! 

Ian MacKinnon’s Witchy Gothtober DAY 14

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Visit www.gothtober.com and click on Day 14 for the most helpful advice you’ll get this year!

Ian MacKinnan’s coven of witchy sisters are going to guide you toward greatness, if only you’ll listen to their common sense wisdom! Each of them is over 500 years old, so if you think better… Witch Please, think again!

Studies have shown that regular humans like us can gain infinite knowledge from the centuries of experience our dear majikal wimmin sisters have gleaned. If you don’t like what they are saying, don’t be too vocal about it, they can say incantations that make you grow hair on your eyeballs, it’s best that you not explore their wrath! We think you’ll find that if you apply these helpful bits of learning to your life lexicon, you will achieve a level of balance that was thought to be long lost, according to legendary lore.

 

Christine Nockels Paper Sculpture DAY 13

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Visit www.gothtober.com and click on Day 13

Ms. Nockels brings to us this fine 13th of Gothtober an instructional on how to make your very own enchanting, creepy little paper souls out of office supplies.

Offices can be places for roiling productivity, but more often than not, offices inspire naps, or checking one’s Facebook, or visiting the break room about 20 times in a half an hour. In offices, hard work is expected to be demonstrated through measurable, tangible results yet sometimes… you just gotta do something else. The protestant work ethic can only take you so far, and access into the more abstract world of the mind is a haven. The conceptual narnia of an office is a place where stuff from the supply closet can be so much more, it can be art.

The lines that come from Christine’s pen are fed from a netherworld of passion and heart that fortune 500 companies will never understand or harness. Her work is not meant to be part of a pivotal piece of a company’s continued growth and success, her work is meant to exist and be seen. Art is undervalued in our society, but the expression of human mind and senses is always what people cling to when times are tough. Luckily, artists can’t help themselves and keep stubbornly making art, even while also working day jobs.

Here then, is a way for you to blow off some office steam, stop processing papers and start making things out of papers! Feeling lonely? Make a paper friend! If you don’t like them, you can always incinerate them later. Christine Nockels makes lots of great art, go see some of it, we are especially fond of her series of US Presidents eating hot dogs.

The Stig Strikes Again for Gothtober DAY 12

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Visit www.gothtober.com and click on DAY 12 to see The Stig!

They say that things go better with basset hounds, so we invited The Stig to come on over and celebrate with us for another Gothtober. My goodness, this canine doesn’t disappoint! This year’s presentation by our furry long-eared fellow takes us down an eerie wooded path to tell a story we’ve all been addicted to over the summer. No spoilers! In the footsteps of Flash on Dukes of Hazzard, Sam on That’s So Raven, and Tex Avery’s cartoon creation, the beloved Droopy, The Stig is doing a fine job of becoming everyone’s modern day household Basset Hound!

DAY 11’s Spirit Animal from Trixy Sweetvittles

An action shot of Trixy recording sound in her closet.
An action shot of Trixy recording sound in her closet.

Visit www.gothtober.com and click on DAY 11 for a trippy glimpse of a fascinating creature of the mind!

It is with great pleasure that we offer you some psychedelic experimental animation from Professor Trixy Sweetvittles! She performs, sculpts, makes films and shows others how to do it, she’s a multimedia maker filmer teacher superstar!

You can find her at USC being a badass, but in the meantime, here’s a Gothtober Goodie for you to watch. Here’s what Trixy has to say about the inspiration for this piece:

The animation features my very own Spirit Guide who came to me during a groovy visualization meditation exercise. When this weird skinny red creature with a giant throbbing brain appeared, I was a little shocked and disappointed that my special spirit guide looked like a scary little demon instead of an ethereal goddess. I have since come to enjoy and appreciate the cute little bugger’s place in my head.

Let it be known that inspiration rarely takes the form of something sensible. When you imagine your spirit guide, try to keep an open mind. Guidance, when it arrives, will most probably arrive from unexpected sources in forms barely recognized or understood. It’s not the white dove or the electric wolf or the lightning strike that usually brings the epiphanies, it’s usually something mundane like forgetting to buy toilet paper for the 26th time.

Make-a-Mask from Wolfcat Workshop from DAY 10

screen-shot-2016-10-10-at-10-17-26-pmVisit www.gothtober.com and visit DAY 10 to get your Gothtober Treat! 

Living and working in Los Angeles, making piece after experimental piece, using lines to communicate shapes and colors, lives the marvelous art wizard, Federico Tobon. I like to imagine him in an exciting tiny yurt on the top of a rickety mountain. The art yurt is very difficult to get to, surrounded by oceans and obstacles at every turn, and Federico is always there, making new things for the world.

He makes drawings, he makes wooden automata, he sews things, he’s always tinkering away and sharing his progress day by day. It brings inspiration to me all the time, knowing that he’s out there flexing his art muscles, eating rice and beans, hanging out with his cat and working on his quest to unite his visual output with his maker spirit.

He’s made us a free download-and-print crafty project, a mask that you can wear to your next costume party! Wear it and then tell everyone it wasn’t you sneaking all the Halloween candy, and they will believe you, since you’ll look completely unrecognizable. Better yet, make Federico’s mask, wear it, take some photos and show us how you’re wearing your original 2016 Tobon Gothtober Mask!

Wolfcat Workshop featuring the work of Federico Tobon has all kinds of curiosities for you to explore. Get his newsletter, go shopping for Tobon originals, see what he’s focusing on now, send him a card! His blog will show you his newest art activities, it’ll make you want to get going on your own projects, I highly recommend it!

Gothtober SURPRISE it’s DAY 9!!!!

Piñatas of bully billionaire politicians are quite popular right now...
Piñatas of bully billionaire politicians are quite popular right now…

Visit www.gothtober.com and click on DAY 9 and well… it might be the scariest thing on the entire calendar this year.

Los Gatitos and their basket of adorable deplorables have collaborated this year to make a short and sweet punk song asking you to please not vote for the Cheeto. I’m not gonna say his name because I’m tired of hearing it, and you know who I’m talking about.

Turn this one on, turn it up and sing along, we need it!

Gothtober 9
It’s always been mine*
But this one I bet
Will be the scariest yet
 
There’s a dangerous monster running for president 
Sick in the head, he’s really not hesitant
To foment violence among his followers
A schoolyard bully with a billion dollars
 
Did you know that
Hitler was elected?
Giving hope to the lost and dejected
But soon he started rounding up Jews
Homosexuals, Gyspies too
Don’t kid yourself it could happen here!
 
With angry talk of rounding up Mexicans
Persecuting Muslims they’re not good Americans
Denigrating women, dredging up hate
Now open your eyes before it’s too late!
 
Please don’t vote for Donald Trump
Please don’t vote for Donald Trump
Please don’t vote for Donald Trump
 
He’s a very bad man, he’s a very bad man!
*not quite true