Wild Rumpus....Again!

Some very exciting news! I've been asked to make a set of Wild Things costumes for the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. The costumes will be worn this November at their Wild Rumpus Family Gala in conjunction with their Sendak on Sendak exhibition that is up this fall through January. I haven't had a chance to check out the exhibition yet but everything I've read about it sounds great! I'm excited for my next trip into the city to check it out.

I've gotten a lot of e-mails over the past year asking about my costumes from last year and about the process I went through when I made them. So I'm going to document the process this time as best I can and hopefully it will help some people out on their own costume making ventures. Hopefully there will be a whole slew of Wild Things roaming around across the country come Halloween night this year :)

My first step this time was to draw up some costume designs (the paper I used was too big to scan easily, so please excuse the photos). My biggest issue with the costumes I made last year were the proportions. I wanted to try and make these costumes more cartoon like (with a larger head to body ratio), and I wanted to make them a little more comfortable to wear (in terms of being able to see out and having enough air flow). To solve these issues, I'm going to only use papier mache to make the very front part of the mask - just the face really - and then build up a structure underneath the fabric covering to create the rest of the bulk of the head. For the flatter faced Wild Things (Moishe and Tzippy) I'm going to place the eye holes inside the nose (last time they were underneath the eyes), and for Bernard, with his long snout, I'm going to place the eye holes right along the top ridge of his nose. You can get an idea of what I'm talking about below:



The masks are now underway and I'll have pictures here soon!