happy Halloween

THIS YEAR, I deem Halloween happy. None of that spooky, scary, macabre or twisted stuff for me. I've get quite enough of the things that keep you awake at night on the daily news, thank you very much. It seems there's been a reversal. Could it be that the original intent of Halloween is no longer needed? When our everyday lives are filled with trickery and not treatery? 

THE WORD "Halloween" is actually of Christian origin and dates back to 1745. It literally means "hallowed" or "holy" evening. Hmmm, that's more like it if you're remembering saints, martyrs and all the faithful departed believers. Those truly faithful of yore still might have something to say to us of fore. And I bet their impetus would be a happy one, instead of a scolding one, no?


INSPIRATION comes to me from many different directions. The process is sometimes more interesting than the end result. Such is the case in this year's Halloween tree. Sometimes my vision for a tree doesn't come together quite like I have imagined—taking on a direction of its own—which is fine by me. It is still a fun exercise to make a treat to share.


A KIND OF free-association is what makes the happy accidents happen. My tree ended up with a decidedly subtle demeanor, which renders it incongruent with the increasingly large Halloween celebrations we see today. Or maybe its just a natural transition to the elegant holiday celebrations in the season ahead that carry us into the next year.

THIS TREE's understated Halloween presence incorporates one-eyed pleated rounds (I glued one googly eye in the middle of each for subtle humor), Christopher Radko's Shiny Brite Halloween ornaments and larger ones webbed with glitter (slightly displaced in form, not color—rushing the Christmas season ahead), and graphic tins and containers at the base containing unexpected Halloween treats such as licorice candies (which admittedly, a lot of people don't like, but I know some like me who do).


WHEN THINKING happy, my thoughts went immediately to the generic goblin masks of my youth, which I would love to see a comeback of in a market overtaken by commercial characters and gruesome zombies that saturate the media). I've gathered some photos of them here and present their retro-generic, but scary-fun presence in this photo grid. Altogether, the color palette is pretty wonderfully happy (inspiration for next year?).

WHO KNOWS? Assembling a unique tree always is an experiment in combining disparate, but appropriate things together to  find a fresh expression of the holiday. What's happy about this process is there are no rules—only happy associations and accidents. With my "Happy Halloween" mantra firmly unplanted from my cheek, I salute a happy season ahead!

©2013 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland

robots and sunflowers

THE  FUTURE  does not always become what we want it to be. But our imaginings and projections onto it are what make the present, so it never hurts to freely associate what we want the future to be. One never knows where an idea will lead. After all, our thoughts have a surefire way of connecting to our reality. We can think about the totality of life situations, or we can focus on the positive things within the whole. It's almost always a choice to do so. And when we do focus on the good energy, more of it seems to come our way (the opposite is true also). One thing leads to another, just as in associative thinking.

AS  KIDS, we all thought about what it would be like when we grew up. Limitless possibilities are given room to grow, but when we become adults, life has a way of getting in the way of this childlike exuberance. My friend Lenny Zimmerman has found a way to tap into this free-association of our childhood psyche, and bring it back to life in his paintings of robots. I think that's why he has gotten such a positive response to them. He says: "I always thought robots would be super curious and full of awe and wonder . . . just like kids where everything is new." Lenny's paintings were the inspiration for this post. And they capture his amazingly inquisitive nature as a talented artist and graphic designer. He projects human thoughts and situations onto mechanical beings.

IT  HAS  ALWAYS  been this way with robots. As kids, robots represented something that we could project our thoughts about the future onto. They became more human to us as a result, in the increasingly manufactured world in which we live. Sometimes they could be brutal or scary, but more often than not, we saw them as friends or searched for a way to do so. In becoming adults, we saw that some menial and repetitive tasks could be replaced with robots, but they could never quite replace anything with real emotion. We all learned that we still had a living-and-breathing emotional life in this natural, not manufactured world.  

RETRO ROBOTS | (Top photo, clockwise, from top left):

The gold/silver robot ornament was inspired by the 1950s Japanese Yonezawa Gold Beacon Robot tin toy.

The red robot ornament was inspired by the 1950s Japanese Nomura X-70 Robot tin toy. The original robot’s striped head would open up like a flower to reveal another head.

The blue cone head robot ornament was inspired by the 1950s Japanese Yonezawa Cone Head Robot tin toy.

The silver robot ornament was inspired by the 1950s Japanese Yoneya Silver Walking Robot tin toy. The original wind-up toy robot had unique side-stepping flipper feet.

All the ornaments above are ©Midwest/Seasons of Cannon Falls and are available at Tin Toy Arcade in College Park, Georgia. 

PURE IMAGINATION | (painting above): Lenny "Porkchop" Zimmerman titles this painting "Robot in the Grass." It creates a world where a robot relaxes in the grass surrounded by sunflowers (or are they sunlamps?). Just as real sunflowers follow and face the sun, these sunflowers are emitting an effusive wonder back to the viewer through a robot discovering his emotions. Lenny says of this painting "I found a bright spot of happy." 

©2010 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

photography and styling by Darryl Moland

as inspired by Lenny "Porkchop" Zimmerman
painting by Porkchop

ONE  OF  MY  favorite recent movies about robots is the animated feature from Pixar named Wall-E. It has a profound ecological message of how we need to take care of the natural world (it shows a scenario if humans had to leave Earth to survive). If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it! Go here to find out more or view the trailer.

ALSO, one of the most brilliant commercials I've seen lately is this one about remembering what it's like to have the "pure imagination" of a child again. See the commercial below (click arrow on the image below to start and then click again to view the wide screen version on YouTube):

 

retromodern redux

NOT ALL TREES need to speak directly to nature. They can take their cues from cherished ornaments you've inherited and be combined with newer interpretations of retro ornaments to strike a carefully-conceived balance of the memory of past holidays with new ones made every year. A colorfully decorated "retromodern" tree can be achieved by decorating it with inherited treasures or collecting the from online auctions where people often sell treasures from someone's attic. The secret to making it modern lies in combining retro heirlooms with modern ornaments. Reproductions of old ornaments are also increasingly being found in the marketplace. Fresh color combinations can be found anywhere, but two immediate sources are antique ornaments or in the whimsical textile designs of Tammis Keefe. There are plenty of ornaments on the market today that push the concept of color further than tradition. And rather than an evergreen tree, try a German-style feather tree (made from dyed or bleached goose feathers wrapped around wire branches). The sparseness of the branches make plenty of room for ornaments to be composed carefully. Some newer tinsel trees also get their cues from feather trees. One great thing about these types of artificial trees is that there are no dropped needles to clean up!

IF CHOOSING a real tree, pay careful attention to trimming it properly before decorating. Modern Christmas tree farms fill the market with too-perfect conical trees that are packed full of branches because that's what the market usually demands. It's rare to find a tree with a natural shape anymore, but if every other row of branches is trimmed out of the tree, it will give your ornaments room to hang freely. Leave any branches that give natural character and protrude from the conical shape. Some tree farms are getting the clue and not shearing their trees so fastidiously. The good thing about tree farms is that you're not cutting down a tree that wasn't grown specifically for the season, so they are still more ecologically sound than plastic trees made from petroleum products. There's nothing like the smell of a fresh evergreen at Christmas. And you can use the trimmings to make garland or a wreath!

MY COLLECTING obsession has its roots in college when I came up with concepts for a hypothetical store that sold holiday decorations as one of my graphic identity projects. I found these classic red ornaments made by the Krebs family at Kmart then (in the early 1980's—years before the once stellar selections from Martha Stewart Everyday were sold there). It was the finish and ornament caps on these German-origin ornaments that sold me. Rather than the silver lined shiny ornaments, these had a beautiful rich painted finish that has held up to the test of time (I haven't seen any quite like them since). I rarely use a purely red and green color combination for my tree (or trees). Even back then, I combined the red ornaments with several shades of pink, cream and clear ornaments. It seems that I try for a new color theme nearly every year and my friends have come to expect it from me, so I see it as a creative challenge, much like that college project.

ONE CAN FIND unusual colors in the market more readily these days. I credit Martha Stewart with filling the market with modern, more subtle colors—based on antiques (especially in her earlier collections for Kmart). Thankfully, other companies have also followed suit. Manufacturers have been a lot more conservative with the economic downturn, so they are marketing the "safe" colors that sell at Christmas. Those red ornaments I found back in college were fixtures on my parent's tree for years after I had moved onto other themes and my ornament collecting turned into an obsession. Now they are treasured "heirlooms."

IT'S FUN to make something old new again. All it takes is a bit of imagination and a willingness to find your inspiration in fresh color combinations. Don't be afraid to stray away from the traditional. You might be surprised that a unique interpretation of the holiday color scheme becomes your new favorite . . . this year, at least! 

RETROMODERN TREE | Combining antique striped bells and mica-coated ornaments with modern Christopher Radko reproductions of Shiny Brite ornaments; new, brightly striped and patterned interpretations by Isaac Mizrahi for Target along with brightly-striped balls from the Garnet Hill catalog and polka dotted and nubbed ornaments from Martha Stewart Everyday at Kmart, this traditional German feather tree comes alive with interest. It is topped with a Moravian star ornament made into a tree topper from Martha Stewart Everyday at Kmart that I glittered with teal German glass glitter (above, right). The chartreuse painted pedestal it sits atop is filled with reproduction "Shiny Brite" indent ornaments from the Smithsonian catalog. The rustic-modern table that holds it all is a match with chartreuse and cream striped boards on top. 

OBSESSIVE ORIGINS | These rich red German-origin ornaments with fancy gold caps (traditionally, ornament caps are distinctive to a particular family company) are from Christmas by Krebs. These are the first ornaments I bought when my collecting adventure began in college—over 25 years ago. The whimsical 1940's(?) linen Christmas handkerchief is signed by Tammis Keefe, and serves as a modern inspiration for a fresh holiday palette. Even if you have traditionally-colored ornaments, you can freshen the look with rickrack or other ribbon ornament ties in a bright hue to set off a vibration of color, (above, left). 

©2009 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

collecting and styling by Darryl Moland, 
photography by Claudia Lopez (above, right) 
and Darryl Moland (above, left)