Pumpkin Pumpkin 17, show us riddles unforeseen!We’ve gone from psychedelic to experimental this week, featuring the fast-paced, intricate and strangely wondrous stylings of artist and experimental animator, Alyssa Sherwood!
Alyssa says her piece is about:
Lots of incomplete ideas about Victorian people, molecular biology, lacework, DNA burrowing worm holes, child laborers and photos by Lewis Hine, Industrial Age carried forth through the work of tiny hands and mistreated children, Victorian women/fashion, the Fox sisters and the spiritualist compound, Lily Dale in upstate New York, ectoplasm, the earliest sound recording from1860 sounds like bees inter-mixed with what the song really sounds like.
I recommend watching it a few times, since you’ll probably notice different things with each viewing, at least that’s my experience.
Rocks painted by Chris Feldsparr, Mother of the Head Candy Corn of Gothtober.com
Time for a mid-month Gothtober “Fall Interlude”
Been feeling horribly homesick for the last three weeks. I grew up in a beautiful place, running through orchards to pick apples for pies that Mom would bake. I’d hide in Grapevines, and watch as over the months, they’d turn from rich deep green into a sea of fire colored wonder flanked by dark coniferous trees during Autumn. I miss the scent of the rich loam of northern dirt, mustard flowers, redwood trees and even the cow pies. Especially prevailing at this time of year is “first crush” or the smell of fermented grapes processed and placed into wooden barrels by wineries in their haste to take advantage of the season’s best. I may be an Angeleno, but river water runs in my blood, and I’m a Forestville girl at heart.
I also miss my family, who are all really awesome, and what makes homesickness even more excruciating? Photos from HOME! Mom sent me pictures of she and Papa Rick’s pumpkin patch, and she also sent me a photo of her fabulous halloween rocks! Mom’s a rock painter, as you can see, she’s quite good, and these petrified jack’o’lanterns are so dang adorable I want them ALL, but I’ll settle for just one, if she’s even giving them away! I think CraftNight’s going to have a rock painting night soon, thanks for the inspiration, Mom!
Mom and Papa Rick’s 2012 Pumpkin Patch Surprise! Look at ’em GROW!
And the PUMPKIN PATCH, well… in my mind I’m always thinking I’ll have a patch like this at some point, but our soil has so much clay, and it gets kind of hot for pumpkins down here, so it would take some kind of insane amount of diligence on our part to actually have a successful patch. For instance, itps 90 degrees outside right now! Scandalous!
But up north, it’s quite a bit cooler, there is fog, just the kind of cold damp environment for a squash to thrive. The Feldsparr Patch is AMAZING, just look at those pumpkins! Papa Rick is a consumate gardener, he’s always growing things in his garden, their potatoes are so buttery, their garlic is so much better than supermarket garlic, or even farmer’s market garlic! It’s always a pleasure coming home and eating from their homegrown patch of veggies! I wonder if pie is going to happen, or soup, or pumpkin pizza, or if they’re going to turn into Jack’o’Lanterns… I hope we’ll get an update!
This concludes the Gothtober mid-month “Fall Interlude”, thanks for reading!
Ghost Dad in principle shooting for Gothtober Day 16A Still from The Waller Family Singer’s Day 16
Arriving (or departing?) via Crystal Ship today are The Waller Family Singers! Click Pumpkin 16, and don’t be surprised if your consciousness is raised by 20% after seeing it, there are secrets and symbols we may never understand, but this is how it is when the mysteries of October are revealed. There are many many things to see in this piece, and the voice of “Ghost Dad” as I shall him for the sake of not exposing his identity, is as lovely as ever, but especially haunting for such a friendly spectre! Take a trip into a situation where acorn tea doesn’t need as much water as you thought, rabbits get hugged, pumpkins push strollers, figurines and gems connect with each other, and beards come in florescent colors.
The more I looked at the Ghost Dad, I had a weird feeling he might exist in another realm, a place where he might materialize in this waking physicality. It’s probably just my mind trying to make sense of alternate realities, because I could also swear that I saw his likeness flit by in Gothtober Pumpkin #9… I think managing all of these Gothtober contributors has me going batty. Anyway, we seem to be on kind of a psychedelic path this week, and I like this song, so I just thought I’d share it with you.
Mother/Daughter team Miss Lori and Madame Rose strike a pose… or two or three poses, actually!
What goodies are in store for you today from the Gothtober Postal Service at Pumpkin #15!!!You can get three, count’em THREE FREE downloadable printable wonderful Halloween cards that have been hand illustrated by this high-powered and enterprising family duo! Lori Meekerstarts things off with a stop-motion animation piece, you can watch the red sky and the murky olive-colored hills, when what comes flapping o’er the horizon but a batty little creature carrying goodies for everybody! Nope, it certainly isn’t Santa, because Santa, to my recollection, doesn’t eat bugs or make high-pitched squeaky noises. Oh right… and Santa doesn’t have wings.
The cards are available for download at the end of the movie, and you can get an owl, pumpkin or bat, and there are two sizes of each! One size is for an automatic “print-and-go” so you print it, fold it, write something on it and give it to a friend. The other size available is for perhaps cutting out and sticking in your scrap book, or in a letter to a friend, or on a very fancy card that has taken you lots of time to make!
Well look who washed up on shore for Gothtober Day 14, it’s our old pal, Spooky Bonercle of Barnacle Bros! He’s dolphinately up to the usual te-reef-ic tricks, this time starring as himself in “Spooky Bonercle Jumps the Shark!” and getting beach slapped. It’s a kriller whale of a surfin’ tale with REAL SURFING and and it’s urchin for you to sea it. Just squiddin’ that’s not the ray we do things, you’ve got plenty of time to shrimply visit the calendar whenever you like. If you see anything extra weird, let minnow, don’t leave the news to salmon else. We trout there’s anything weirder than Gothtober, we’ve been herring about it for ten years, it’s very ofishal.
It’s death-defying, it’s stupefying, it’s THE MOST INCREDIBLE SHOW YOU’LL EVER SEE! And it’s all visible by clicking Gothtober Pumpkin #13!!! The Gump Family has done it again with a spectacle you’ll not want to miss this Spooky season!
Michael Gump of BananaBee Lab has wrangled the Gump household and friends into making a marvelous pageant of colorful Halloween Circus display. You’ll see trained spiders! (I think they’re saying “yummy yummy” is that correct?) You’ll see the Strongest Monster, you’ll see the funny clowns and SO MUCH MORE!
The master of ceremonies is voiced by the young and amazing Arrow Gump, and you can hear his (also quite amazing) younger sister Pixie in the background providing dynamic fanfare! Daddy Gump can be heard as various characters, and Mama Gump was doing a bit of puppetry here and there.
Joel and JJ Day Departments helped with the camera magic, and Grapejuice helped edit the thing into the fast-paced, action-packed showstopper that it is today.
Apparently, Arrow walked up to his Dad and said “Dad, we’re doing The Halloween Circus this year” and so the project began with all the making and doing that goes along with building a circus! Gotta put up the tents, water the um… crocodiles and get those skeletons and spiders in line! This family really knows how to put on a show.
I hear that Halloween circuses are especially challenging since half of the staff is nocturnal, which is also something that Gothtober has here at the headquarters, a succinct inability to regulate decent circadian rhythms, and such is the life of vampires. Anyway, go see The Halloween Circus, it’s a rousing success, you can watch it over and over again and it just keeps getting more exciting!
Pumpkin #12 on the Gothtober calendaris a beautifully illustrated German counting lesson by Christy Stout Chambers! You see, as it is the 10th year of Gothtober, I asked contributors to either follow the basic “Halloween Theme” like the very first Gothtober, or do something with the theme of “10.” This is the first piece so far that addresses the power of 10! This is also the very first international submission this year, Christy and her family moved to Frankfurt, Germany, and in the middle of it all, Christy was still able to get her piece out to us here in California! Hooray computers!
With the help of my German friend Annika the whole family is learning German…. Which is hard. We all just thought it would be fun to have our piece be about what is going on right now for us. We have all mastered counting to ten so it seemed appropriate. We are living in Frankfurt Germany, which is very close to Hanau where the brothers Grimm lived when they were little. They grew up playing in the forests here and the traditional folk stories told by the locals are what eventually became the fairy tales we all know today.
At one point, Christy even used an airplane window as a light box to help her transfer sketches from her sketchbook!
The pictures were drawn by hand and painted with watercolor, old school style. Since we were literally moving while I was working on them, I had no fancy materials. The only art supplies I could locate were a pencil, ink pen and my trusty box of watercolors which I had taken on the plane.
I concur, as an illustrator myself, I think old school supplies pack a whollop that computers still can’t touch, and the style of the artwork is full of such loose and exuberant watercolor-y wonder, it is, dare I say, quite Grimm-like in its execution. The line work is contagious, making me itch to go find my own pens to make some fun drawings!
I asked Christy what’s going on in Germany right now, and what kinds of exciting snacks are in the spotlight right now:
They have pretzels and sausages. Right now everything is fall/ octoberfest themed. There is beer EVERYWHERE and in Frankfurt there is a ton of apple wine which is a regional bitter cider. It is sometimes served with haxen a crispy grilled pork shank. The Germans make over 300 kinds of bread so there is usually a bakery….and chocolates. There are a TON of Turkish immigrants so there is also “doner kebab” which is turkeys version of schwarma.
If going to Germany right now isn’t practical for your schedule or finances, just find Christy’s Gothtober window and you can have a small immersion language countdown! Better than Rosetta! Don’t forget the apple wine…
Look over there… wandering… slowly walking… bloodthirsty… ZOMBIES!!! Click on Gothtober Pumpkin #11and experience the thrilling dismay and scintillating misgivings of Pinkee Lee Estrange and Lenore Colina’s “Trick or Treat” an old timey movie starring some very hungry corpses in need of BRAINS!!! What would normally be a pretty standard errand for a pair of zombies, however, turns out to be more arduous than expected, as you will see from watching the film.
A Gothtober merit award goes out to the actors (Aubrie Davis and Brian Grover) who played the zombies because they consented to ACTUALLY BEING BURIED IN THE GROUND for the opening scene. This puts them in league with many fine method actors, but especially Sissy Spacek who insisted on being stuck in a box and buried in the ground in order to film the super creepy end scene for “Carrie.” Brian DePalma refused to bury her himself, and got her husband to do it.
I had her husband bury her because I certainly didn’t want to bury her. I used to walk around and set up the shot and every once in a while we’d hear Sissy: ‘Are we ready yet?’ ‘Yeah, Sissy, we’re going to be ready real soon.”
Pinkee said that she dug the first grave in the front yard where the zombies live and she accidentally ran into some REMAINS! The previously existing plot held the skeleton of a family pet long buried quite awhile ago from the look of it. Pinkee apologized profusely, put the remains back and dug in a different spot! Gothtober would like to thank the ghosty dog for being an inordinate part of the artistic endeavors of our Gothtober contributors. The film involved two days of shooting, and every scene was shot in Silverlake or Echo Park in beautiful Los Angeles, CA.
I asked Pinkee if there any hazards associated with directing the undead and the response was surprising:
Mostly I was just really worried about fingers getting slammed in the door!
I’m sure the zombies would just think it was finger-eatin’ good.
Innocent looking Cans of Harbor Chowder sitting in the cupboard.
Joining us this week in a thoroughly good-natured gothic way are artist animator beer maker musician superstar necromancer warlock magician wizard kitty cat dragon dark force bearded sorcerer pals Ben and Federico! Federico is making a drawing a day for the entire month of October, in case you need more than one countdown in your life, check it out.
Having just suffered through a mighty mighty bout of food poisoning, dear reader, I can attest that this Gothtober piece has been the most difficult one for me to post yet. Normally chowder doesn’t really sway my countenance, but this week was a whole other matter. Beware of what you eat, it can really change your day, or your week, or… oh justgo click on PUMPKIN #10 of Gothtober and don’t say I didn’t warn you!
The most famous version of the perilous tale of The Chasse-galerie appeared in literary periodical The Century Magazine in August of 1892. The story involves three voyageurs and the choices they make in alternative modes of travel after a drunken night of revelry. I am most certain that this story was told on riverbanks, and one should know that many versions of this story were transformed into song, but not just any song: a canoe-paddling song, of which there are MANY in the lexicon of great French Canadian musical ditties.
You will at first hear the recorded voices of Le Rêve du Diable singing the song “Voyageurs de la Gatineau” and then you will hear original piano plinking and saw singing, songs Scary Alouette and Birds and Flowers by The Larks! And yes, it’s a real saw you can hear being played in the background, just lovely, and also a real upright piano made of wood and wires and everything!
Here is an english translation of some of the singing:
We left for a voyage by canoe on the Gatineau river.
Travelling mostly with our feet on the ground and our load on our backs.
As we went, we thought of our misspent childhoods,
running to the inns, our money already squandered there.
Once we get to the lakeshore, travelling from lake to lake to camp,
It’s there that we will build, my dear children,
Build a cabin that we’ll call our home, A home made of spruce trunks that are round, not square.
Suffice it to say, if you’re going to travel the Gatineau River, don’t just borrow anyone’s canoe… and you might want to lay off the drink.
Pumpkin Pumpkin 17, show us riddles unforeseen! We’ve gone from psychedelic to experimental this week, featuring the fast-paced, intricate and strangely wondrous stylings of artist and experimental animator, Alyssa Sherwood!
