Stop It, You Look Delicious!
In 2022, I had a painting exhibition scheduled to open on November first. Normally I would be working on Halloween costumes from about August onward, but this year I needed to focus on those paintings. So I made the early (and brave, very brave, and also selfless) decision that I was going to completely half-ass Halloween this year.
Since I’d had a pretty big mask show in 2021, I was in the fortunate position of possessing many masks that had never been worn for Halloween. So, just this once, I would select a mask that already existed and then I would throw together an outfit to wear with it.
The mask I chose was the Delicious Elephant, inspired by those classic frosted circus animal cookies.
The tasks were simple! I acquired a vest and a pink polo shirt from a thrift store, and wrapped the vest in the fabric from the shirt. That formed a great base for painting the vest to match the color of my mask. I did the same with a pair of plain canvas work gloves.
For sugar sprinkles, I made dozens and dozens of little individual paper clay balls, set with wire loops. Once they were painted, I would sew each one on by hand.
Naturally I made little cookie replacement buttons for my overcoat, and finally, an adorably undersized bowler hat. Like the kind the elephants wear in wild Africa.
My partner Bill had his own plans for half-assing Halloween, but took the extra step of throwing them all out on Halloween morning and deciding to just wear the Stop Sign mask instead!
That was an especially interesting phenomenon, because his costume was really only the mask. He was wearing a union suit, with my red skinny jeans over it, but that’s just clothes. And as we were walking around downtown during the Halloween event, people loved him! It was such fun seeing how people wanted to interact with him, and I was constantly hearing people talk about the stop sign costume, and it was literally the simplest thing that either of us have ever worn. But he was stunning!
