Welcome to the first Halloween Address. This will hopefully be something I do on a yearly basis. For me, Halloween has always been my favorite holiday and even though I don't dress up anymore or go to many Halloween-related events, I still take time to appreciate the overall atmosphere of the holiday. This day continues to have an influence on everything I do. Halloween is also important for me for another reason. It is the time of year when I am slowly wrapping up whatever I am working on and I begin planning for the following year. By January or in early February, those plans are set in stone and I proceed to move forward and try to follow through with my plans to the best of my ability. This is why I feel a Halloween Address is necessary. I can celebrate the holiday in my own way by taking time to look back at what I had done and to dream about what I could potentially look forward to.
2020 has been my most challenging year yet, at least creatively. The main challenge of 2020 has been trying to get anything done. The pandemic destroyed whatever plans I had. I lost access to the studio at the college meaning that many projects had to be pushed back to next year. Also, as an essential employee, I worked long hours and exhausted myself both physically and mentally to try and help get the world back on its feet. This is the reason why this blog hasn't seen many updates throughout the year. There was nothing to update. That isn't to say that nothing was going on in the background. During the summer, I made arrangements with the college to go back early next year and resume with where I left off back in March. Also, in August, I started doing work in the back of my basement to create more workspace for my studio and to make everything work more efficiently for me. The work I began then will hopefully be near completion within a few days. I was also looking into.... something else, something big. I can't talk about that right now though. It's too early. Let's just say that the next year or two will be quite interesting. Aside from fixing workplaces and making preparations, I spent a lot of time reflecting on how I could improve a lot of what I do in terms of marketing, branding and selling products. I'm not going into detail about that now. I would like to save that for a future post.
Since I spent the end of the winter and much of the spring dealing with the pandemic and much of the summer trying to fix up my studio and readjust whatever plans I had, where does that leave me now? It's quite simple. I am picking up where I left off in March, at least to the best of my abilities. Anything ceramic-related is off limits. Since my drawings are connected to much of my ceramic work, much of that has been put off as well. However, I was working on something else earlier this year, something that originated in an unusual place. In the fall of 2019, I was at work on a night when there was no truck. I was getting the store into shape and I found a pumpkin sitting on a shelf. I'm assuming a customer decided they didn't want it because much of the stem had broken off and instead putting it back with the other pumpkins, they just randomly put it on a shelf. As weird as it sounds, I felt sorry for that pumpkin and I ended up buying it. Not knowing what to do with it, I left the pumpkin in my room for a few months. This led to a new photography project in 2020. I asked myself how I could make something new. I did pumpkin pictures in the past, quite a few of them. In 2018, I did my first project with turnip carvings. The logical conclusion was to do something with both pumpkins and turnips. Since Halloween had come and gone, I could no longer buy pumpkins and had to rely on only one. However, turnips are sold throughout the year, so I could get as many of them as I wanted. As I planned out a photoshoot, something else came to mind. I typically use the back of the drawing and painting studio at the college as a makeshift photography studio. That studio contains many objects used for still-life drawings and paintings including animal skulls. That gave me another idea. I figured while I was there, why not throw in a couple of animal skulls into the mix. In all honesty, I wasn't even sure if they were still there. I hadn't seen them in years. Fortunately, they were and I used a few of them. Then I got another idea. Since I was there and I had everything set up, I figured I could use a few of these skulls as a subject matter independent from the pumpkin and turnips. I hadn't done any photo projects with skulls yet. So one photo project turned into two photo projects. Oh, and that broken pumpkin stem? My solution to that became a mini mixed-media project (read my pre-pandemic progress report for more on that). Anyway, I took the pictures back in February. The world shut down in March. While I occasionally fooled around with the pictures on Photoshop, it took me while to get back to a regular workflow. I did though and I finally completed something this year.
Now that I'm finally getting back on track and I actually did something this year, I can take the time to celebrate Halloween in my own way. I am going to debut two new projects right here. I present to everyone my digital photography/digital art projects The Ritual and The Offering. Using blood-colored filters, these pictures give off a dark and somewhat morbid tone while injecting some mild humor, especially with some of the turnip faces. The Ritual has pumpkins, turnips and skulls set up like candles or religious objects on an alter. The Offering has animal skulls arranged in such a way, almost as if they were children wearing masks for trick-or-treating. The intimidating vibes given off by the skulls could very well serve as a warning of the consequences of leaving said children unsatisfied. Alternatively, the skulls themselves could be the offering, such as the college allowing me to use them to serve my creative needs. Finally, I present the new blog design, based on The Ritual. I made it through the pandemic. It's the beginning of a new post-pandemic era and I felt that redesigning and renaming the blog was necessary. What I present here is only the beginning of what is to come. To think, all this was possible because of a pumpkin with a broken stem a customer randomly placed on a store shelf that I happened to come across over a year ago. It's amazing how creativity works.
That is the end of the first Halloween Address. I know there is quite a bit to read here and I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read it all. Consider the pictures as a reward for putting up with a wall of text. Anyway, feel free to ask questions and leave comments. Also, share this post with anyone who might be interested. If you want to support me and my projects, you can donate to my Patreon or visit from my Etsy shop (which is REALLY in need of a major update).
https://www.patreon.com/Jon_Erich
https://www.etsy.com/shop/Jonerich
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The Ritual
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The Offering
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