It’s late in the month, and the classic Texas heat settled in a few weeks early, so the lack of updates is more to do with taking the habits of one Heloderma suspectum and working predominately under cover and in the wee hours. (Taking all habits might be a bad idea: the neighbors might take issue with sucking eggs and swallowing baby bunnies whole.) That means, though, that between shows and events, new enclosures are getting ready for premiere at summer Triffid Ranch gallery events. Here’s a taste, as part of a dry-fitting before making final adjustments and planting the final enclosure:
More to follow…
I get a lot of people asking “So why sell plants at a horror convention?” Well, I have a lot of reasons. The biggest one for coming out to Texas Frightmare Weekend is a matter of balance. Most artists, particularly those specializing in dioramas, will tell you that balance is always better than symmetry except in military parades. Balance is a natural flow for maximum aesthetic appeal, while symmetry always screams “regimented” and “controlled”. Texas Frightmare Weekend has a lot of strengths, but one of its greatest is the understanding that the two dealer’s rooms need balance. No one particular art form dominates: because of a very careful jury system on incoming vendor applicants, instead of just giving spaces to the first vendors to apply, a lot of different vendors have opportunities. Original art has room, T-shirts have room, sculptors and tattoo artists have room, and attendees don’t look across a vista of a full room of exactly the same things on each and every table. That’s why when the doors open every day during Frightmare, people are already waiting, and they sprint in to see what they missed the last time. Between vendors and guests, this is why Frightmare doesn’t follow the lead of other conventions and schedule multiple events throughout the year: the attendees beg “Have mercy on my wallet: I love it all, but I need to pay rent, too.”
This being the tenth Texas Frightmare Weekend show for the Triffid Ranch. the dynamic of the crowd coming by the booth is changing, and all for the good. Teenagers who came by to peruse in 2009 are now bringing their kids by, and others bring by pictures of plants purchased in previous years as if they’re showing off grandchildren. Sometimes the shock is how much the kids have grown in just a year. A lot of Frightmare regulars will relate how so many of the attendees are like family, and that’s a fair assessment: I’m just the uncle who sits near the end at Thanksgiving dinner and makes those seated at the kid’s table ask “How DOES he manage to get that soda straw that far up his nose?”
