Saturday the 14th

Saturday the 14th... After my post yesterday about ventriloquist dummies and clowns, I thought I'd be a big brave girl and watch this killer ventriloquist dummy movie Mike brought home called Dead Silence.

I made it through the credits... I met the 2 main characters. The dummy got delivered by an unknown person... The girl plays with it and mentions the evil doll maker. She puts the dummy down and it's mouth drops open on it's own.

I get up and put on a Hogan's Heroes Dvd. I lasted all of 4 and a half minutes.

Friday the 13th is Scary?

Okay, it's another Friday the 13th...

Sorry, this is not something that scares me. The number 13 has always boded well for me.

The things that always scared me were people and things that seemed false or pretended to be human like clowns or ventriloquist dummies or even mannequins.


Take clowns for example... did you know that during the middle ages traveling acting troupes used performers in white face and motley clothing as the devil figure in the religious cycle plays? The characters pretended to be sweet and kind but had an evil agenda.

Fear of the pseudo human like a ventriloquist dummy... hmmm maybe that can be traced to stories of wizards giving life to dolls and such that will do their masters' evil bidding. I remember movies like the Devil Doll really scaring the daylights out of me. In that movie, an evil magician trapped his victim's consciousness in a ventriloquist dummy.

Movies and shows that portray clowns and dummies as the frightful things I believe them to be don't bother me too much. I think that's because the clowns and dummies aren't pretending to be nice. Check out Killer Clowns From Outer Space http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dns3RKkgko
or the Canadian tv series Puppets Who Kill http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaWltRP8s8c I always knew clowns could suck the essence out of you with crazy straws and that puppets had homicidal issues.

The number 13 will never be something I fear when there are clowns and pseudo human dolls with evil agendas just waiting to do something terrible....


BOOO!

Creating Art based on your Fears-Big Dolls And Ventriloquist Dummies

Okay, I have this thing about big dolls.... That kissy doll is around 2 feet tall and when you pull her arms together with the palms touching she blows a kiss.

Now if the fact that old kissy was as big I was at age 3, the hissy popping sound of the kiss, surely scared me. I thought she had a snake inside her that I woke up when I moved her arms together.

The other doll- like creations I still get the creeps over are ventriloquist dummies.

My Mom used to make me watch scary movies with her when I was little. One that has always stayed with me was the 1964 Devil Doll.

This evil magician found a way to trap a victim's consciousness inside his ventriloquist dummy. He kept the poor dummy in a cage each night. So, we have the origins of my claustrophobia, the fear of being controlled by someone else, and the hatred of humanoid doll like things pretending to be something they're not....what a cornucopia of fears....

Now at age 49, I make art dolls for a living....go figure. I make Cthulhu monsters, ghosts, anthropomorphic figures, and all kinds of strange creatures.



Sometimes I wonder if I'm really overcoming my fears by making these sculptures or just feeding them.

But, I do think it is much more challenging to create something that you're not completely comfortable viewing when you're finished with it.