Posted onNovember 30, 2019|Comments Off on The Aftermath: Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays 2019 – 4
Ever since the gallery went live, the Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays show has been a good excuse to go to Austin, a good excuse to see old friends who moved out of Dallas, and a great way to end the year as far as outside events were concerned. Thanks are in order for the Blood Over Texas crew, all of the attendees of the Horror For the Holidays show, and the staff of Green Mesquite BBQ on Barton Springs in downtown Austin, who kept me fed all weekend. I’ll see you all next November.
Fin.
Comments Off on The Aftermath: Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays 2019 – 4
Due to a death in the family, this Saturday’s Nightmare Weekend Before Christmas has been cancelled, but expect a full return to form on Saturday, December 7. If you’re really nice, I might even sing for the occasion:
Posted onNovember 29, 2019|Comments Off on Vital notice: Nightmare Weekend Before Christmas Cancelled
Apologies for the relative lack of notice, but due to a death in the family, the Nightmare Weekend Before Christmas open house this weekend is cancelled. We’ll return on December 7. Thank you very much for your understanding at this difficult time.
Comments Off on Vital notice: Nightmare Weekend Before Christmas Cancelled
Posted onNovember 28, 2019|Comments Off on The Aftermath: Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays 2019 – 3
Now, people outside Texas may be a little concerned at the thought of a horror-themed holiday market such as the Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays shows, as monsters and nightmares don’t seem to fit the traditional holiday spirit. These are folks who may not be familiar with the history of the German and Czech settlers who moved into Central Texas in the 19th and 20th Centuries, and they brought a lot more than their traditions for beer, sausage, and cheese. (Handy travel tip: Central Texas is full of caves eroded into the underlying limestone, which is one of many reasons why Texas has some of the best cheese caves on the planet. Don’t even get me started on how a breakfast without kolache is like a broken pencil.) Krampus parades are as much a Texas tradition as chili, and the Blood Over Texas crew knows how to throw a good one.
To be continued…
Comments Off on The Aftermath: Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays 2019 – 3
Posted onNovember 27, 2019|Comments Off on The Aftermath: Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays 2019 – 2
A regular comment made around the Triffid Ranch this time of the year: the one unrealistic thing about the Henry Selick film The Nightmare Before Christmas (that famed hyperrealistic portrayal of the time the skeletal avatar of Halloween kidnapped Santa Claus) involved the ending. Out of all of the kids getting new presents from Santa to replace the horrific ones from Jack Skellington, you’re trying to tell me not one child on the planet Earth would be crying and pleading to keep Jack’s presents and decorations? That Santa didn’t come back to Christmastown with at least one set of preteen teeth firmly locked onto his ample posterior and refusing to let go without Santa surrendering that Russian doll with the scorpion inside? Not one kid writing Jack Skellington each year with a list of science toys, begging him to take over for Santa for just one otherwise miserable holiday season?
Judging by the crowd at this year’s Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays show, a lot of other people felt the same way, and made accommodations as they got older. Santa tries to take these gifts back, and he’d better have plate-steel Underoos.
To be continued…
Comments Off on The Aftermath: Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays 2019 – 2
Posted onNovember 26, 2019|Comments Off on The Aftermath: Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays 2019 – 1
Three years after the first out-of-Dallas Triffid Ranch show, and the crew at Blood Over Texas in Austin decided to punch up the annual Horror For the Holidays show this year. Having wildly outgrown its old location, both in attendance and in vendors, the plan this year was to relocate to the Travis County Expo Center, which allowed a lot more usable room, more natural light, and a schedule that allowed both Saturday and Sunday operation. They offered the venue, and we vendors took it over.
As far as the last out-of-town Triffid Ranch event of 2019 was concerned, it went out on a great note. Lots of old friends (including three who happened to be out from Dallas that weekend), lots of new faces, and several folks whose assistance will be of great help with future projects. Best of all, many attendees were very helpful with ideas for next year’s shows in both Austin and Houston.
To be continued…
Comments Off on The Aftermath: Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays 2019 – 1
Once more for the year, the Triffid Ranch is on the road: once again, it’s to Austin for the Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays show, now spread out over Saturday AND Sunday. For the Dallas folks, don’t worry: a couple of days of recuperation, and then the Nightmare Weekends Before Christmas gallery open houses start on November 30. Sleep? What’s that?
Posted onNovember 21, 2019|Comments Off on State of the Gallery: November 2019 – Special Edition
Surprisingly, not just a metaphor
A lot has happened in November so far, and more is gearing up for the rest of the month, in what the author Harlan Ellison called “the hour that stretches.” November has always been an, er, interesting month in my life, what with layoffs, moves, new jobs, and more than a few deaths. November 2019 follows in that tradition, and the plan is that the window that opens when the door closes is a greenhouse vent and not an airlock. Yeah, it’s been one of THOSE Novembers.
Anyway, the practical upshot is that appointment availability for Triffid Ranch consultations just became a lot more open. The Nightmare Weekends Before Christmas Saturday night open houses starting on November 30 remain unaffected, but now the gallery will be open a lot more often during the week, too. Just excuse the mess: the events over the last two months (of which no more will be said) interfered with new projects, so the idea now is to rectify that situation. Among other things, this frees up storage space, it gives new homes for older plants to stretch out, and it gives more reasons for all of you lot to come out to multiple Nightmare Weekends to see what’s new THIS time. If you’ve had an eye on a particular enclosure but haven’t made the move to take it home just yet, this may be the perfect opportunity.
And the rest of the year? That’s dedicated both to a wedding anniversary blowout (17 years as of December 28, and people still assume that we’ve been married for weeks) and to getting ready for 2020. This includes a stem-to-stern renovation of the gallery, other essential updates (after all, we’ve been in the space for three years as of February, so we have plans), and scheduling for the largest list of outside events yet. Among other things, a quick perusal of the calendar revealed that next Valentine’s Day falls on a Friday, and between this and Leap Day on a Saturday, it’s time to call some people and plan a multi-venue event. As always, details will follow as they happen: if it doesn’t happen, you’ll never know about it.
Speaking of venues, if you’ve attended an open house and never stepped across the doorway to our neighbor Visions of Venice, consider yourself encouraged to investigate. Besides being the absolute best business neighbor a boy could ever want, the amount of crossover interest between carnivorous plants and Italian glasswork continues to surprise me. Even better, the storefront is open during the week, so don’t be afraid to head out during a lunch break with a whole group of coworkers and peruse the stock of masks and chandeliers. (Yes, they actually go together. Don’t argue with me on this.)
Finally, before loading up the van and heading out to Austin for this weekend’s Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays show at the Travis County Exposition Center, a little note: some of you may have noticed that the new URL for this Web site changed to http://www.texastriffidranch.com within the last week. It’s a funny story as the old URL still works, and you’ll have to come out to one of the Triffid Ranch events for an explanation. In the meantime, if you haven’t been exploring through the archives in a while, please indulge your curiosity, as WordPress and Google are fighting over whether or not this is new content. Besides, you don’t have anything better to do the week before American Thanksgiving when you’re trapped at work and everyone else is taking off on early vacations, right?
Comments Off on State of the Gallery: November 2019 – Special Edition
Posted onNovember 14, 2019|Comments Off on The Aftermath: Deep Ellum Creative Market – 2
One of the biggest issues with doing Triffid Ranch shows outside involves wind. After all, North Texas is noted for its winds, and both the big windstorm that hit Dallas last June and the tornadoes that hit us in October arrived shortly after I’d broken down after events, either earlier that day or the night before. (With the June show in Garland, not only would the storm have blown everything to Oz or at least Nehwon, but the tree shading my booth also shed the big branch previously hanging directly overhead.)
In the case of the Deep Ellum Creative Market, the tradition continued: subfreezing temperatures and a serious threat of snow, but those only came after everything had been packed up and carted home. Before that, though, for a weekend with an inordinate number of events in the Dallas area, including a major Cowboys football game, the crowd coming through was both numerous and enthusiastic.
For a first-time show, the Creative Market ran very well, and its only issues were due to its youth. If things go well and it runs next year, expect to see the Triffid Ranch out there in a prominent location.
Comments Off on The Aftermath: Deep Ellum Creative Market – 2
Posted onNovember 14, 2019|Comments Off on The Aftermath: Deep Ellum Creative Market 2019 – 1
When doing outdoor shows, it’s best to go out on a high note. Rain would have been bad enough, but last Monday came with the sort of subfreezing temperatures and brutal north winds that usually hit Dallas around the beginning of January. The weekend of the Deep Ellum Creative Market, though, was clear, sunny, and warm, and you couldn’t have asked for better weather for the last outdoor show of the year.
For those outside Dallas, the Deep Ellum area east of downtown started with a reputation for great blues musicians in the 1920s and 1930s, and then fell into decline as an industrial area until 1984, when the famed Russell Hobbs opened the sadly-long-defunct Theater Gallery in 1984. The resultant explosion of clubs and arts galleries led to official city pushback (especially when the sole news coverage for the area came via business interests with money tied up in the Lower Greenville and West End adult amusement parks), leading to a regular series of booms and busts and expansions. The latest boom coincides with the construction of highrise apartment buildings through the area, but there are still plenty of people who remember little outstanding venues such as Club Clearview and Another Roadside Attraction, world-famous murals by local artists Mosquito and Trippy Thompson (both former neighbors of mine when I lived in nearby Exposition Park in the early Nineties), and a young jewelry artist famed for selling necklaces and bracelets out of a guitar case.
(With the last, I first met that jewelry artist in a then-vacant field in 1990 as she sat next to a trio of other vendors. My girlfriend at the time was immediately jealous of her: and so she should have been, seeing as how 29 years later, we’ve been married for the better part of two decades.)
The idea behind the Deep Ellum Creative Market was a celebration of those kind of connections. Unlike the much larger Deep Ellum Art Fest, which begrudgingly gives tent space to local artists from time to time, the main requirement for admission into the Creative Market was an actual connection to the area, or at least more of one than “I threw up in a urinal at Club Dada once.” Since the first-ever Triffid Ranch booth was at the long-forgotten Deep Ellum Sellem in 2006, I had more bona fides than merely marrying a local fixture. Therefore, after much wrangling, about 50 other vendors and I set up tents on a cool Saturday morning and put out our wares to a lively audience of residents and pedestrians.
To be continued…
Comments Off on The Aftermath: Deep Ellum Creative Market 2019 – 1
Heading out to the Deep Ellum Creative Market on November 9 and 10, and anyone in the vicinity is welcome to attend. For obvious reasons, this will be the last outdoor show of the year, and the second-to last external before we return to the gallery on November 30 for the first of this year’s Nightmare Weekends Before Christmas. Let’s enjoy the weather while it lasts.
