Halloween Paintings
A letter to Rob Zombie
Update: So I met Rob Zombie and he’s cool and down-to-earth. He really was kind to his fans and tried make them at ease.
When I spoke with him he was trying to joke around but I was so focused on thanking him and showing him some of my paintings (and worried about making people behind me in line wait to meet him) that I wasn’t able to joke back. If you’re reading this Rob, I’m usually more laid back.
Anyway, I think he got the message I was grateful for his inspiration because I said it about five times. He liked my “Living Dead Girl” painting and cracked a smile at my “Donkey Kong” painting which was all I hoped for. I told him about how I tried to paint like Basil Gogos with my Frankenstein painting (I discovered Basil Gogos through Rob Zombie’s intro in a book about Mr. Gogos. See the amazing art of Basil Gogos at basilgogos.net)
I forgot to show him my take on Picasso and my FrankenPatrick but it was just a great, cool, fun experience. Thanks to Rob and to ILoveAllAccess.com for the opportunity.
Later in the night I remembered about a half dozen questions I wanted to ask him and I realized I didn’t tell him this was my seventh Zombie show. Oh well. The show, by the way, was one of the best I’ve seen of his. If you get a chance, you should try to see him live.
And Rob – if you haven’t read it yet there’s kind words below and a link to that Picasso painting I wanted to show you. Thanks!
Original post:
On 12/04/09, courtesy of a VIP package, I’ll get to meet Rob Zombie at the Electric Factory in Philly. If I’m able to convince him to stop by here, I hope he reads this:
Mr. Zombie, thanks a million for committing to a career of monster rock, illustration, comics, and movies. There’s a lot of easier ways to make a living and your career has not only given me a soundtrack for the Fall of every year, but inspires me to be true to myself and the kind of art I want to make.
Your music has influenced my art, and become part of my life. I can’t really thank you enough for making that music. It’s made my life more fun during good times and put a smile on my face during some bad times.
My wife and I have thrown a Halloween party for all our friends for the past fourteen years. Each year I create a series of Halloween-themed or horror-inspired paintings of my friends. I’m always listening to your music while I paint these.
Here’s a painting inspired by Living Dead Girl and a few of my favorite paintings I’ve done over the years. If you’ve read this far, thanks again. If you want to see all 95 of those paintings, you can go to the gallery. If you’re really into the Steve Cleff Experience, you can also check out FluidBeauty.com which is my site for my other style of painting.
Living Dead Girl
Some of my favorites
If you ever want to collaborate on some art, let me know.
Thanks
Steve Cleff
Had to paint at least one
Things are crazy with the baby, but on Halloween, 10/31/09 I painted this picture of FrankenPatrick:
Next year, at least five more. That’ll make it 100 Halloween paintings.
See you next year
With impending parenthood on the way, it’s just not possible to do Halloween paintings or have the party this year. We did have an extra party last year (13 and 1/2) so hopefully that eases the gap.
Meanwhile, since this post will be up for quite a while, if you’re curious about what I’ve done, here’s a link to the gallery and the paintings from last year.
2005: Return to Horror
In 2005, it had been two years since I had actually done any horror-themed paintings. Considering that in 2002, it was horror music themed, and that the year before it was an 80s theme, it had been almost five years. So, clearly, it was time for horror.
Typically, I try and work new friends we’ve made that year into the paintings, and we had started hanging out quite a bit with the members and significant others of the band the Red Stanleys. I had grand plans for all of the Stanleys to be in these paintings, but ran out of time. So this year, I got to finish the project I had planned for ’05. Originally these were to be in three separate paintings, but the theme this year necessitated that I combine them.
Background on the 2005 paintings
Like the years prior, I had collected a list of friends who I wanted to be in the paintings, and sent out e-mails asking who wanted to be what. I claimed vampire, and I can’t remember if Trish chose to be Samara from the Ring before or during the project.
There was a high amount of movie-themed paintings, and I suppose that says something about how cultural stories are passed along, or concepts are introduced, or I should say, were introduced since so much of that happens on the web now. That actually inspired my next year’s theme and I believe was the beginning of me choosing a theme a year in advance. So, yeah, I know what 2009 will be already.
I didn’t want to just rip-off movies in 2005, so I put some thought into the paintings and tried to pull out what makes each type of monster or movie special.
I don’t know how well the paintings conveyed this, but they helped me make some decisions when doing them.
Here they are:
Carrie – coming of age
Halloween – empowerment
Hellraiser – temptation
Dracula – sexuality
Zombies – allegory (commuters are zombies, get it? you ride the train to work and tell me it’s not true)
Chucky/Timmy – satire
Ring – terror
Chainsaw Massacre – gore
These are what I see in these movies (or movie genres in the case of zombies) not what I’m trying to say. Like I said, it gave me structure.
It was a lot of fun, I learned some things about horror movies, and the painting I did of me with three Trish’s is consistently people’s favorite painting. The idea came from the intersection of me always telling Trish the only way she could be better is if there were two of her and my thinking about how I wanted to be Dracula.
Remix of 2002: Evil Songs: Living Dead Girl
In 2002, the theme was “Evil Songs” I was busy that year and didn’t do a whole lot. Some of these are some people’s favorites.
My wife, Trish was the model.
Here’s the original gallery:
The songs were:
The World is a Vampire by Smashing Pumpkins
Vampire by Elephantman
I honestly don’t remember how the Garfinkel’s got to be invisible
Living Dead Girl by Rob Zombie
Bela Lugosi’s Dead by Bauhaus
Happy Halloween Month
This site will house my Halloween paintings, pictures from our (myself and my wife’s) Halloween parties, and a blog on how I put together the Halloween paintings for this year.
The gallery is in the process of being built, but if you can’t wait, you can see the paintings from 1996 – 2006.
I’ll be uploading 2007′s work soon and I’ll begin showing the project for this year shortly after that.