tree in the city

I GREW UP in a small town near Gadsden, Alabama (where I was born) called Hokes Bluff. I spent my formative years there — childhood, kindergarten, elementary school, junior high, and high school. It was a small close-knit community and I still have many lifetime friends that have known me since I knew me. To get an idea how small, there were only 104 people in my high school graduating class. 

I WOULDN'T  TRADE my small town upbringing for anything. I learned a sense of belonging and comfort that fewer and fewer people experience. Since my zodiac sign is Taurus, this sense of stability was even more important to me because we Taureans like such predictability. The "tin soldier" in this photo, standing guard under the tree reminds me of a song we played in high school band called One Tin Soldier. The chorus goes like this:

Go ahead and hate your neighbor, 
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing,
Come the judgment day,
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away.

One Tin Soldier is a 1960s counterculture era anti-war song that tells the story of a hidden treasure and two neighboring tribes; the peaceful Mountain Kingdom and the warlike Valley Kingdom. Coveting the treasure of the mountains, the Valley People ultimately invade and slaughter the Mountain People. The treasure turns out to be simply three words —"Peace On Earth" — inscribed on the underside of a rock.

I've probably never really digested those lyrics until now. And after all this time, life has such a weird way of leading you to things that help you figure out why you've taken certain paths, when others are satisfied with the status quo. It helps when you're looking from the outside in.

CITY LIFE: The Atlanta skyline beckoned me from safe environs in Birmingham, Alabama way back in 1994 (just before the Centennial Olympic Games were held here).

I HAVEN'T MOVED FAR in my life from where I began, physically, at least. First, after high school, I got a visual design degree at Auburn University in Alabama. My love of magazines led me to my first job out of college in Birmingham, Alabama at Southern Living magazine and then Cooking Light magazine (which was born from a column in Southern Living). I worked at that company for 10 years before I made the "jump" to Atlanta in late 1994  — just before the Centennial Olympic Games here in 1996 — I've never really looked back. A large part of it was being queer and trying to find an accepting family far away from the family of relatives and friends who didn't quite get who I became, not by choice, but by innate preference.

MY PARENTS WERE both blue collar workers. My mother worked at the high school lunchroom and my father had a job operating a crane at the local steel plant, which is now shuttered. It's no wonder the people who stayed behind in small towns feel marginalized now. There are fewer jobs and what was once a bustling town has fallen into decay. They rely on what is left of what was and the future looks bleaker by the day.

IT REMAINS A mystery to me how we got here. How could our new Twitter Troll In Chief be forming, against his claims of helping the forgotten middle class in small towns, a billionaire's club of contemptuous and out of touch cronies?

PRECIOUS METAL: WWII ornaments were made with bits of silver tinsel pushed inside unsilvered glass globes to save metal for the war efforts.

THE COUNTRY my father fought for in WWII is in trouble in facing the same dangers he fought against in Nazi Germany. It is truly frightening.

My father was a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne that occupied Hitler's Headquarters (The Eagle's Nest) and was renowned for its role in the Battle of the Bulge around the city of Bastogne, Belgium that was finally rescued by General Patton. This battle effectively ended the war.

When I see members of the new Alt Right (Neo Nazis) emboldened to raise their hands in a Hitler salute for Trump, it lets me know that tyranny like this can happen here. It scares me also because as a gay man that just recently was afforded the right to marry, we have an extremely anti-gay Vice President calling the shots with an inept clown at the helm. 

I find it very hard to accept that the scourge my father fought to eliminate in WWII is in a very real way, upon us again. It is my only hope that we all realize the treasure that we all are looking for is simply "Peace on Earth" and we finally, once-and-for-all get the message that love trumps hate.

©2016 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland,

German-style goose feather tree designed by me and made by 

Dennis Bauer is available for sale at Home Traditions

Halloween parade

IT'S OBVIOUS everywhere this time of year, that Halloween has become the most celebrated holiday aside from Christmas. It hasn't been until the past few years that I've really gotten into the spirit of the holiday since my trick-or-treat years as a kid. When going out with a couple of friends, I dressed as— what else?—a spooky tree. Even though I cheated a bit and wore a cheesy web-bought costume, I did add more fake autumn leaves to it to dress it up. 

Dana and Devin have a moment.

LAST NIGHT, I realized that people—eschewing the commercial— are once again investing a lot of creative elbow grease into their Halloween costumes. It's great to see handmade and over-the-top inventiveness in designing costumes is making a big comeback. My friend Dana sewed her incredibly detailed blue gingham dress for her costume as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz—making it really work with incredible makeup and hair and glittery red flats. With white face and big overblown red lips, Devin dressed as one of the fashion show moments of the late "enfant terrible"Alexander McQueen. I also saw some other really brilliantly designed costumes such as a woman dressed as a framed Mona Lisa—as the live image in front of the frame, complete with the moody background image. There was also a group of new acquaintances dressed as the One Percent, who made their costumes from fake money and got into full character by filling their bags with said fake money and giving it to people on the street, tossing it into the air, and even burning stacks of it while smoking a cigar!

I'M GUESSING THAT next year, I will have to do the same with a costume instead of spending all my spare time on conceiving and designing trees for my blog. I've spent part of two weekends now celebrating the holiday with friends here in Atlanta. Last weekend, I attended the 11th Annual Little Five Points Halloween Festival & Parade. I haven't checked, but I'm not sure if another city that has a Halloween festival and parade. It has been an Atlanta tradition for eleven years now! Local Atlanta artist, Ronnie Land designed and illustrated the really fun and creepy logo for the parade this year, which you see here.

FUN AND CREEPY has always been my mantra for Halloween. The decorations I enjoy most have a definite macabre side, but are always fun and exuberantly creative. That was my goal when creating this "Skeleton Key Tree." So, of course, I emailed the well-known Halloween product illustrator and designer—Johanna Parker, and asked her what I could do with these amazing mercury glass skeleton head ornaments I found. Always in Halloween mode, I give her credit for giving me the idea of framing them and hanging skeleton keys from the branches. She didn't see the final results until this post. It was fun creating this tree and brainstorming with her about it. I searched high and low for the perfect craggy branch and retrieved it a while back in order to let it dry as it did. I even left some of the leaves on it to give it a creepier asymmetrical look.

EVEN IF YOU WAIT until the last minute—with a little advance planning, of course—your Halloween parade of costumes, decorations and decor can contribute to the fun and creepy spirit of All Hallows Eve. You're certain to encounter a parade of fun and creepy characters, whether receiving trick-or-treaters or going out on the town. Here's wishing you a happy, creepy and fun Halloween!

SPIRITED ELEGANCE | (Top two photos and above) This "skeleton key tree" makes use of a craggy branch with some of the dried leaves still intact, mercury glass skeleton head ornaments are from Z Gallerie. Handmade glittered frames were made from clip art glued and trimmed from matte board and the skeleton keys were found on eBay. The scene is set with a faux bois container for the tree, a faux pumpkin with calligraphy from Bayberry Cove and one with a cat silhouette and stars found at Ross. Bright green reindeer moss adds the finishing touch, along with the requisite container of Halloween candy to satisfy the spooks.

FRAMED HEADS | The image used to frame the mercury glass skeleton heads from Z Gallerie was printed from a piece of stock clip art, flipped in Photoshop on the opposite side to match up, then glued to matte board, trimmed with an Xacto knife and glued and glittered with glow-in-the-dark glitter from Martha Stewart Crafts. I thank Devin for helping me with those. Black grosgrain ribbon was tied around the tops of the frames for hanging. The skeleton keys found on eBay were simply hung from the branch with black cotton thread at varying lengths.

FLAMING FUN | These old-fashioned counter-weight wire candleholders by Bethany Lowe Designs added just the right mood. Of course they look great in the photo and can create the right mood in real life, but have to be carefully attended—especially on a dried branch—as with any live flame. The candle holders were purchased from Bayberry Cove.

PARADE OF CHARACTERS | Real pumpkins are painted with flat gray latex paint to look as if they are casted. The simple and inexpensive paper masks from Target were slipped onto the painted pumpkins making this family of last-minute apparitions come to life without any carving.

©2011 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland