Twisted Passions - Twisted Art: scary monkeys

Creating Beauty

As a child, I was frightened by a humongous Kissy doll. At 3, it was as big as I was and when you pulled it's hands together it made a smacking or a supposed kissing sound. I was sure it would get up and get me......making smacking sounds as it neared my bed.

Now I make dolls.....some are supposed to be scary, but most just reflect how I look at beauty. To me we have a very narrow view of what beauty is and is not. I have cerebral palsy and don't think I'm whining about it I'm not. I'm lucky my case is very mild compared to some people's. But you can pick me out as different, I walk awkwardly, but my arm and leg work correctly.....for someone with a partially paralyzed arm and leg.

I look like someone with CP is supposed to and in my way I'm attractive. I try to reflect alternative beauty in the dolls I create and so in some ways I'm still dealing with fear, but now it's not my own.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Scary Monkeys... Part two

Now evil monkeys can be scary, but these monkeys I'm talking about here like the trained chimps in Lancelot Link. Lancelot Link -the Doctor Goes Ape. They're scary only in the sense of the creepiness of dressing up and training fairly intelligent animals to imitate human behavior.

Don't get me wrong, I am not like some people who are intimidated by animals closely related to us. In many ways Chimps seem like humans with even less impulse control than we have.....which is why they can be so violent when provoked. We, as humans, often have such a thin veneer of civility and compassion that dressing up a so called lessor being and forcing it to act like us seems hypocritical. In many ways, we're so much more cruel.

Now this sadness or revulsion I have about trained apes was why I had my alter ego Chat Noir create magical apes with their own set of abilities and regret it. The saving grace of her chimps is that they are tiny and not stronger than a human so if they get really angry they aren't quite as dangerous as a real chimpanzee.

It's funny, but I feel odd about even making these figures sometimes. Art you make even though it upsets you is hard to do.

Scary Monkeys....part one

What are the scariest creatures created for a movie? For me, it was the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. I tried my hand at making a flying monkey and I think my Tango is pretty creepy too. I've never cared for the wings on the back of the figure....so I incorporated the wings into the arms. I wonder how people like the look of the wing/arms combo. I'm designing a second winged monkey and will continue the combined arms unless it really might put off buyers. Let me know what you think.

One scary monkey TV movie I remember watching as a 13 yr old that creeped me out was this film called either A Cold Way to Die or what I knew it as The Chill Factor. I love that this version even has the old TV movie opening. If you watch it, I hope it creeps you out too.