Halloween 2015

Halloween pre-funk party costume... found the sparkle pants n stripes at the quarry, was augmented with helmet and ear thingies when I arrived, than Rod added the red shoes, clubs and cute lunch box.

And Us as Elove-phants.

One Man Wimbledon

A group of us went to Mike Mathieu's One Man Wimbledon show at the iDiom Theater.

It was amazing. We were inspired to come dressed in tennis garb, which made it extra fun.

Wren and I had a photoshoot afterwards for extra, extra fun.

Thanks Mike, for the inspiration, hilarity, and amazingly wonderful show.

Marilyn photo-shoot with Thaddeus

I've had this idea for a few years now, and I've finally found the photographer to make it happen! Thaddeus Hink and I got together to photograph me as Marilyn Monroe with her famous blowing dress, but do it on a toilet with water blowing out of it. Thaddeus had the idea of adding toilet paper blowing out from under my dress to add to the toilet aspect. Here'a a smippit from the post-tp photo shoot.

It was such a blast working with him, and essentially making one of my dreams come true!

I'm so excited for the final product. We have a few more ideas, and probably another photo session before it's a finished product. But hopefully it'll be ready for turning into postcards, and other fun things soon!

Fun with Moustaches!

One of my favorite things to receive is a message asking me to help someone with costuming... particularly facial costuming... most particularly, moustache costuming. Recently, my friend Katie asked if I could help her with a moustache fitting. Here were our nose-neighboring options (the staches I currently had in my stache).

This one here is typically know as the Fu Manchu moustache. A full, straight moustache that grows downward past the lips and on either side of the chin; and often, the tapered, pointed ends of the moustache hang past the jawline. The Fu Manchu is similar to the common horseshoe ("biker") moustache; the difference between the two types of moustache is that the Fu Manchu is grown only from the upper lip, whilst the sides remain clean shaven for the "Handlebar Mustache"

Both of these could be considered a Walrus moustache, which is characterized by whiskers that are thick, bushy, and droop over the mouth. The style resembles the whiskers of a walrus. Two notables are Mark Twain and Friedrich Nietzsche. Or a Chevron Moustache which is thick and wide, usually covering the top of the upper lip. Or the Hungairan Moustache.

A Handlebar Moustache is a moustache with particularly lengthy and upwardly curved extremities. It is named for its resemblance to the handlebars of a bicycle. It is also known as a Spaghetti Moustache, because of its stereotypical association with Italian men. The Handlebar Club humorously describes the style as "a hirsute appendage of the upper lip and with graspable extremities". This could also be considered an English moustache. A style that is narrow, beginning at the middle of the upper lip the whiskers are very long and pulled to the side, slightly curled; the ends are pointed slightly upward; areas past the corner of the mouth must be shaved.

Both these could be considered a Natural, Handlebar, English, or Imperial.

The final was the large version of the "Handlebar/English/Natural/Imperial" Moustache. I had no idea how complicated recognizing and categorizing Moustache styles is! This was sure fun to research! And thanks to Katie for the opportunity for fun with Moustaches!

The Pie Hole

So one fun thing that has happened recently is La Fiamma owner, Ken Bothman, asked the Circus Guild if they'd like to perform 3 nights a week in front of their new attraction, The Pie Hole. It's a late night pizza-by-the-slice business for the Thurs-Sat downtown crowd  looking for "after-hours" delicious eats. Wren and I decided to be one of the evenings' entertainers.

Wren (who also has a blog post about this) was a fire-juggling slice of pizza! "Get you're wood-fire, flaming hot pizza!" we would bellow.

I was in the warmest costume I could find... it was such a chilly night!

Wren was great at getting people involved. We taught juggling and rope tricks to the late-night revelers who were passing by... this guy with the anchor shirt and his lady friend hung out for almost an hour with us! Almost more impressive than their tenacity for learning, was their resilience or even disregard for the freezing temperature! All in all it was a great experience. So if you get a chance, check out the Pie hole at La Fiamma Thursdays-Saturdays from 11:30pm-2:00am! http://www.facebook.com/PieHoleBham

Summer Sewing

So I'm moving into a Clown Pod at the Quarry! I'm super stoked because of many reasons. One of those reasons is sewing... I guess I love it.  And though living in a van has been an amazing and liberating adventure, it is not the most conducive for sewing machine desires. Ok, I will share more info about the quarry and my new residency soon, but for now... here are photos of my first project in the  Pod... Chaps!

First I cut up a pair of old torn Carharts (thanks Liam!) for a pattern. I had the darndest time trying to see how to make chaps online, so decided just cuttin' up a some pants would be the best idea.

Then picked the fabric from one of my (too) many fabric bins, cut out enough for two pair, drew a fun design for the sides (the black fabric), and decided on elastic for the back. This is just the preliminary phase... soon I will fringe, trim and bedazzle the heck out of these!

Here is a photo of them in action... Wren and I have a rope act we've been working on. He found this super awesome song (Egyptian Regge by Johnathan Richman & Modern Lovers) that had us thinking cowboys, so that was the motivation for this project, and we had an amazing place to perform... on a flatbed truck at the annual summer potluck at the Happy Little Farm in Conway (awesome folks, food and best vegetarian gravy in the morning!).

Here we are as Yippee and Ki-yay (with the just-sewn chaps, vests and buckles), two of the Happy Little Circus crew (Justincredible, Miles, Zach, Tasche, Kai, Clay, Jules, Chipps and Jasper)...

and we were just part of the ongoing entertainment of the day/night, as Lucas called some square-dancing, there was a paper-rock-scissors tournament, Smoke Wagon played some rockin set into the night, and there was midnight naked slip-and-sliding! What!?! Hooray for summertime, circus and sewing!