Haint Scared

hrmm

2012-02-12T09:40:00.003-05:00

In mid-October, before Hallowe'en actually gets here, I am usually already thinking about what I want to do the following year. Then I gradually let ideas brew for a while and take time to enjoy the rest of the holidays. Contrary to popular belief I actually do like Christmas time. I like to refer to it as "Yule." Not in a completely contrary manner but I don't wish to celebrate the birth of Christ. I also don't acknowledge Yule in a neo-pagan sense even though it is a pretty solid pagan idea. All the evergreen decor (even the tree, yes) is tree worship. For some reason I believe it is important to know this things. Just as it is important to know where your surname comes from. Which is to say most people don't care about these things. Anyway..as with all holidays I get swept up in the romance of the mythmaking and storytelling. Discovering the Krampus opened up a whole new way to look at the yule-tide season.

I've also recently discovered Walpurgis Night. This is one that deserves a revival/recreation for the 'States.

happy hallowe'en

2011-10-28T22:33:00.004-04:00

i always have a feeling that i'll blog nearly every day in october but i always
get carried away with everything else. i did take the time to try something
new. i've never done any zombie material. until now.

good ol' days

2011-10-24T22:48:00.003-04:00

this is probably my favorite video on all of youtube.
it makes me think of what it was like not to have
access to everything at hallowe'en time. back when
you still had to be creative and make your own fake
blood if you needed more than a tube. it's also
pitch-perfect on how i remember hallowe'en growing up.

strange fruit

2011-10-03T21:41:00.001-04:00

he grows in the garden every year
(scarecrow made of jack-o-lantern, vines and roots)

Belsnickle

2011-08-30T09:22:00.002-04:00

I want to revive Belsnickling. Look it up.

"spook chime"

2011-08-11T11:31:00.001-04:00

hmm

2011-08-03T18:42:00.004-04:00

With this project I'm avoiding gore. I know it's almost become synonymous with Halloween and I find that sad. It just seems like such a cop-out to me. I haven't seen any of the past decades gorefest movies. I used to love the genre but something has happened in the past few years: I am older. That's not to say that I think i'm better. There's a lot more scarier things out there to me than blood and guts. Don't get me wrong, that still scares me but I just prefer the creeping over the in-your-face. This shows my naivete but I really don't like that Halloween got mixed up with murder. Children dress as glorified mass murderers from horror films. That is really fucked up if you think about it. Maybe this denial I've acquired is necessary. Recreating an innocence may not be such a bad thing.

I read once that after September 11, 2001 there was a push in traditional Halloween costumes. This led me to believe that we might loosen up on the pop culture infusion and go a more primitive route with our celebrations. I have also held the opinion that as our southern border becomes more and more gray that traditions like Day of the Dead will eventually coalesce Halloween. I am eager to see what happens in coming decades.

project

2011-07-17T22:22:00.005-04:00

A peek at one of the things i'm working on:

I think I am going to call them Spook Chimes. So far materials include tin cans and guitar strings. Similar items would have been found at the home of Almeda Wyrick. More about her later

crafty inspiration

2011-07-12T11:06:00.003-04:00

Halloween decorations I find most inspiring:

"vintage German":

and i really like some of the 'primitive' quasi-folk-art halloween stuff. it honestly creeps me out

obligatory inaugural post

2011-07-10T14:17:00.007-04:00

here's a fragmented ramble to attempt to explain all this (to myself and you....)

Haint Scared.

haint (hnt)n. Chiefly Southern U.S. Variant of haunt.

All my 'art' centers around story. Whether it's a visual art show, a performance, or Hallowe'en display. I'm always drawn to the story or the reasons behind what is going on. I've never felt fully comfortable with the title of artist. One time a local paper did a writeup about a show I had and the writer referred to me as a 'storyteller' and I really felt good about that.

I've always been obsessed with Hallowe'en and 'scary things.' I've not always been big on being from the south. I have spent a lot of my life dropping words from my vocabulary and disguising an accent just to prove I wasn't a match for a stereotype I was conditioned to be ashamed of.
Over the past few years I have become more comfortable with the fact that I'm a Southerner. Having always been interested I started taking genealogy seriously in the past five years or so. My family tree is firmly rooted in the south and has been for centuries. There aren't many stories for all the names I've come across and that has only fueled my imagination. Merely connecting the dots of ancestry has inspired many art projects. Having an old portrait in my studio almost makes my brain explode. Recently I have discovered gold mines of family legends, gossip and stories that lend enormously to my material. Sometimes they sound like something out of the 'haint tales' in the Foxfire books (which is where I picked up the word 'haint' officially)

Southern Literature has also made a huge impression on me. I shamefacedly admit that I didn't discover Flannery O'Connor until my late twenties. Each of her stories resonated with me. I felt like I knew the characters and felt like I knew the landscapes and houses. Some of the stories made me remember things like the smell of my Mamaw's kitchen: ripe fruit and paper towels. I've always had a Southern Gothic tendency. The tendency is now a habit of sorts. I kind of want to be Tennessee Williams. OK, Scratch the "kind of."

Haint Scared is a new name for something I've been scratching at for a long time. It's a combination of many fascinations. It's a reconciliation of parts of my life I've made polar. It's a rediscovery of myself and my past. With storytelling and myth-making at the core I plan on creating a new labyrinth for myself to travel through. Expect art, craft, theatre, and more. Expect the macabre as always. The macabre beneath the kudzu.

This "blog" will be a companion to all this. Updates on what I'm up to as well as finds that inspire me. Consider it a reference point and bibliography as well a filing cabinet for both of us.