Halloween 2021 — Matt Fagan Art

Halloween Returns

We’re taking back the holidays in 2021!

Last year it was no fun. All festivities were canceled due to the pandemic, we couldn’t visit thrift stores, and to top it all off my partner Bill was sick on Halloween. 2020 was a jerk. But we’re not gonna let it happen again.

I’m fashioning my costume around Shannon, who is a big blue sasquatch waitress.

Bill is creating a costume so wondrous and baffling that I don’t even know if it will be able to be captured on camera!

In this gallery, I will be collecting some photos of the work we do along the way.

It all started with a fat suit, a thrifted pink dress, and women’s plus-size polo.

With diligence, creativity, brute force, and several yards of white piping, they will be transformed into a beautifully butt-ugly waitress uniform.

Since the mask for Shannon was already completed, I got her costume underway first. It is July 2021. The hundred days have begun!

Meanwhile…

Bill came to me with this sketch for a crazy coif. Just the first nugget of an idea, but a starting point! With no preconceptions about where this might lead, we devised a scheme for a paper mache headdress that could bring the hairstyle to life.

What does the future hold?

As you can see, Bill’s headdress developed new features along the way, and continues to change through experimentation and failure.

A few years ago, Bill thrifted a heavy silver coat. I think it’s what they call a ‘heat proximity coat’ but now it has a shaggy fur lining. It’s August 2021 and he’s adding more fur and fringe! Bill’s costume also includes a glamorous evening gown, and probably super powers. You aren’t even ready. Neither is Bill! He is still figuring out just who this character is.

Next steps for Shannon are her furry arms and legs, blue hands and feet, and maybe a coffee carafe to freshen your beverage.

It’s now the second week of September, 2021. We’ve stopped wearing white shoes because it’s after Labor Day, and we are nearly finished eating Bill’s leftover birthday cupcakes. More importantly, after a lot of redesigns, today I finally painted the headdress silver. A major step forward in our collective journey to Halloween triumph!

Of course, the whole reason the headdress exists is to be a delivery system for that crazy, conical hairdo which comes out the top. Over the past couple of weeks, the hair cone has really started to take shape too.

Bill still has questions, but he is getting closer and closer to understanding the nature of the character he’s becoming. Shannon, on the other hand, appears to teeter dangerously on the precipice of completion. It is September 22, 2021. Now that I’ve finished making her playful neckerchief, there isn’t much left to do (he said, famous-last-wordsingly).

But I’ve spent the last few days adding jewels to the headdress, and Bill just got his super-shiny leggings in the mail. So now it is probably time to step away from Shannon, and help Bill figure out the rest of his costume. Unless he uses his wizard powers to do it himself.

We’ve been proceeding with alterations to Bill’s gown, gradually turning it into more of wizard’s robe. He’s settled on this being some kind of wizard - though he isn’t ready to be more specific than that. It’s October 7, 2021, and I’m starting to feel the cruel pinch of time!

We cut away a big portion from the front of the dress, which will make it easier to walk and look pretty cool with his silver pants. Next, we will take that cloth we cut out, and use it to reshape the neckline. That will knock out the most overtly feminine aspects of the gown, because the coat will cover up the back and sleeves.

Yesterday, we whipped out a pair of purple velvet gloves that Bill is clearly happy with! Meanwhile, the only thing I’ve done for my own costume is the creation of a guest checkbook, that most recognizable emblem of the waitressing profession. Mine isn’t paper, though. It’s painted on a piece of plywood and covered over with a sheet of mylar. That way I can use it as a dry-erase board, so I can communicate when my gigantic mask is on.

Samhain Rising.

It’s the very week of Halloween! October 27, 2021 and we are dangerously close to ready. Most of our recent activity has been focused on refining Bill’s costume, which he has now named

MORIHAR:

(a wizard of grandeur and mystery)

We opted for a different direction on his neckline, employing a silver tank top and a handcrafted chest piece that reshapes the opening. We took an old pair of boots and gave them silver accents, fur cuffs, and laced them with purple paracord. And we added a bold painted design on the back of his coat! The neck piece, boots, and coat were all decorated with a spiraling shape that echoes the shape of his hair-cone, and also resembles the spiral of spell-smoke that is used as a symbol for the wizard class in Dungeons & Dragons.

The coat itself is difficult to work with because its chemical coating rejects pretty much everything it touches. Hot glue? rejected! Gorilla Glue? GTFOH! Spraypaint? Who do you think you’re talking to, buddy?! But with diligence and and desperation, we pushed on. I even reinforced all the fringe with metal rivets in case it all started to fall off when Bill was out walking around!

We also made him a scepter from a dowel painted silver. The top is fashioned from some pipes, purple beads, a gearshift knob, an old shop-light cage, and some wings cut from a plastic serving tray. Unfortunately, only half of the electronics ended up working, but it’s still a dramatic accessory!

And for Shannon, I made her a nametag out of a piece of an Ace Hardware paint stirrer.