I love PumpkinRot’s blog. I was inspired a few years ago to try my hand a paper mache, or glue mache is what I believe he works with and make some Halloween décor, man, the process is just as long and hard as I remember it being. Bless him for having the patience to work with the stuff and make amazing decorations and characters with it. For me, I’ll just stick with clay, plaster and latex. Also, look up his Witch Jars, they are extremely easy to make and effective Halloween (or year round spooky) candle jars.
[…] out this new Blood-Shed article by Josh Millican about our favorite Halloween artist, genius, and constant source of inspiration, […]
Pumpkinrot is a kindred spirit. I have admired his work on the pages of the Internet and read the interview that O’Shields conducted with him when it was released in 2014. He is an astounding artist but, contrary to his talent, holds such simplicity in high regard, as the closing lines of that interview indicate. Almost all of my favorite things, sights and smells that bring me comfort and constant reverie, were mentioned in his answers regarding Halloween and autumn. I am feeling a strong pull to make a trip to merely drive aimlessly through rural PA, in hopes of spotting a magnificent scarecrow, or some other macabre masterpiece. He is inspiring in the same way that Bradbury’s “the Halloween Tree” inspires; a traditional, classic, timeless, yet forceful inspiration. An embodiment of this greatest season. PumpkinRot; truly my present-day Halloween (soul mate) Hero.
Rot is everything that is great about my favorite holiday, without the filler and fluff. He’s an inspiration to the art that I do, has been since I first discovered Johnny Appleseed quite a few years ago. Deep down I would love to sit and talk with him about his work, his outlook on things, what makes him do what he does, but I know I never will and I’m pretty sure I understand why. True greatness often times comes with a price, adoring fans, hero worship, obsession… Perhaps instead of wondering who J, Rot…really is, we should focus on what he would seem to be about, of Halloween at it’s most pure, where everything is possible, when fantasy and reality join hand in hand in unbridled mischief and delight. I hope he never stops doing what he does, it’s a more magical place out there with him in it.