The paper maché creatures in sculptor/photographer Gene Fenton’s menagerie are colorful, fantastic, and intentionally a little disturbing. Add to that the flesh-and-blood element of a "scream queen" -- a woman posing with the monster and evincing fear, mystery, and/or sex appeal, as the case may be -- and you have a photo series that defies easy description.
"It's that weird, gray area -- somewhere between glam, horror, and sci-fi," says the artist, attempting to describe the popularity of his Scream Queen project. "I had made a lot of creatures, and I just did the Scream Queen photos as a fun thing to start with. Then people started saying it was a unique concept in photography. Nobody else seems to be doing it."
A longtime fan of black and white horror and B-movies, Fenton came up with his Scream Queen notion almost by accident. Heading into a gallery where his work was being displayed, and finding himself without a free hand, he once used the sturdy tail of one of his creatures to "hang" the monster from his own shoulder while crossing the street. One of the gallery's interpretive dancers saw him, and commented that the idea of a wearable monster looked interesting. From this, it was a short leap for Fenton to imagine models wearing his creatures at art shows, and posing for promotional photos with them as well. Inspired by cinematic "scream queens" like Fay Wray in King Kong, he began a series of photo sessions with a half-dozen different female models. Often kitschy and tongue-in-cheek, the Scream Queens are an ongoing visual success. "Girls and monsters are a weird combination," Fenton muses. "They really don't go together, but that's the brilliance of it." One of his most effective strategies has been to place the creature in the extreme foreground of the picture, and the model in the extreme background -- creating the illusion that instead of being just a few feet tall, the monster is gigantic, looming threateningly over the human.
At Fenton's impressive Web site (www.genefenton.com), visitors can see dozens of Scream Queen photo shoots, which vary widely not only in tone, but in their creative choice of location, lighting, monster, human model, and costume. Fenton says he enjoys "making the monsters look bigger than buildings, taking pictures in the fog and in the snow." The locales have included indoors, outdoors, daytime, nighttime, woods, desert, water, a zoo, an aviary, a botanical conservatory, an assortment of dance clubs and art galleries, and even the set of a horror film.
"The movie set was great," Fenton recalls. "It was a low-budget slasher, and the actors were all made up like bloody victims. They posed with a bunch of different monsters -- we used the Bat, and a skeletal dinosaur. Lexxxis Lee, the exotic dancer, was there too." (Fenton says the bat creature itself, sadly, is no more; it got wet at the movie set shoot, and had to be thrown away. Such is the sometimes-fragile lifespan of paper maché.) Photos from the movie set shoot, along with those from an aviary (featuring a model in a pink gown, posing with a giant spider), are the next ones slated for posting on the Web site.
Why do women volunteer as Scream Queens? Fenton says the answer varies, but is rarely what you'd expect. "Most of the models either like horror movies, or else they just like lizards or snakes. I don't attract too much of a hardcore Goth crowd, like you might think. Often, there's just some connection there." One model, for example, was interested because she had a pet lizard; another suggested Fenton design a snake-type monster especially for her, because she had an affinity for snakes.
Fenton says he finds his Scream Queens mostly by networking. He started by asking friends and friends of friends, and the project grew from there. "I place a lot of ads in store flyers and cheap newspapers. I'm finding plenty of new models now, though I'm always interested in talking with anyone who'd like to do it," he says. "I just go with the flow, and we design the shoots to be whatever the girl is comfortable with." The artist also tries to use his project as a means of helping the careers of models interested in finding more work. "I try to help the girls get to the next level. I research opportunities to give the models new ways to market themselves."
Most of the Scream Queens are fledgling models looking to advance their careers, or open-minded amateurs who simply want to participate in something creative and original. Still, observers might wonder if Fenton's work on such an admittedly odd, even provocative, project has led him to encounter any, well, certified weirdos. On this, he's keeping details to himself, but he will say, "I have gotten some interesting offers, not all of which I can discuss."
A "Natural" Choice
Fenton, a lifelong resident of Indiana, Pennsylvania, graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1993, with a major in Sculpture and a minor in Printmaking. Sculpture, he says, was "a natural choice" for him. He had begun doing modeling clay sculptures back in grade school, and even then, his subject matter came easily: "I made dinosaurs, and painted the clay with car paint." He got the paint from his father's company, an auto body and repair shop, and recalls that he once spilled it all over the floor at home, to his parents' horror. "Let's just say…it was not a happy moment in the house," he notes dryly.
Fenton attended graduate school at Long Island University, where he received his Master's Degree in Sculpture. He moved back home in 1996, taking a day job in his father's auto shop. It was then that he started working seriously in paper maché, which, as he explains, "isn't always a medium that people necessarily look up to -- it's considered a 'craft' rather than 'art.'" Does the somewhat dubious stature of his chosen medium bother him? Fenton just grins. "Well, it's a little late now," he says with complete practicality. But he is fully aware of how odd his work can sound. "When you say 'paper maché dinosaurs'…do you have a fond memory of paper maché in school? I can safely say I don't. As a kid, you don't have the patience. It's messy, and it's fun for about five minutes. But there's some discipline behind working in paper maché."
The reasons he chose the medium are, typically, born of practicality. Just as he used leftover paint from his father's auto shop to paint the clay dinosaurs he made in grade school, Fenton, as a working artist, chose paper maché for sculpting because it was nearly free (requiring just flour, water, and newspaper) and readily available. He also points out that paper maché can be done anywhere. His main workshop remains the cavernous basement of his parents' home.
One downside of the paper maché medium, however, is its propensity for attracting the wrong kind of admirer -- the tiny, crawling, multi-legged kind. Fenton reports that a recent infestation of bugs, which affected many of his creations, nearly caused him to give up the entire project. He first noticed tiny holes in some of the monsters, and eventually realized that bug eggs in the flour he used for the paper maché paste were hatching, tunneling their way out of the creatures' flesh, and taking up residence in his studio. (Apparently bug eggs are commonly present in commercial flour, but since it's always baked, the heat kills the eggs before they can hatch. Not something that makes you want to go mix up a nice batch of cookies, is it?)
"So the eggs were maturing, and the bugs were coming out of the sculptures," he recalls with horror. "It was depressing. Here I had this great, cheap material, and then I couldn't get rid of the bugs. I almost quit; I felt defeated." The monsters -- and Fenton's career as their creator and photographer -- were saved by his innovative use of flea powder in the flour mixture. He's since moved on to even stronger stuff, an anti-parasite powder made for livestock, which has stopped the problem in its tracks. "Bugs don't want it now," he says grimly.
The Monster Gallery
There are 20 or so monsters in Fenton's current collection. He says his work "used to be a lot more abstract," but that for the past several years, he's been moving toward a much more realistic look. He is inspired largely by classic monster films: "Most of my work has that Godzilla-like flair," he says. Looking at his work, one can clearly note the cinematic influences. "Sometimes I am going for the deliberate 'hokum' look, like in B-movies. You know, like the guy in the rubber octopus suit in The Green Slime. In cases like that, I'm not taking the piece, or myself, too seriously."
How do the creatures come to life? Fenton says he sometimes, but not always, does sketches before beginning a creation. He often uses balloons to create a quick "body." The creatures' arms and legs are composed mostly of simple paper maché. And it's not only his medium that's different -- it's what Fenton does with it: he treats it like clay. (The "rule" for paper maché is that only one layer at a time should be applied, but Fenton prefers to use several layers of thick paper maché that make the material easier to mold with his hands.) He says the dinosaurs with protruding horns and body armor intrigue him the most, "because they give me the greatest opportunity to experiment with texture and color…the details are left to be filled in by my imagination, combined with the imagination of the viewer."
The necks and tails require extra support, which is provided by armatures inside, made of newspaper and masking tape. Fenton painstakingly fashions each creature down to the smallest detail, including individual teeth, toenails, and wrinkled skin, an effect he creates using paper towels, which he then scores with a knife or molds with his hands. Sometimes certain parts of the piece are reworked by sanding, or by trimming the paper maché with a knife. "There are moments," he says, "where you almost have to fight with it." A special challenge is the eyes: "It's hard to get that snake-like look; a certain intelligence, but also that primal, brute force." The creatures are "hatched" bone-white, then painted with a combination of auto and other paints. Fenton estimates that it takes him about three weeks per creature, on average, and he's always got ideas for new ones. "I have some really complicated paper maché nightmares in mind right now," he says. All of his creations are for sale, ranging from $80 for the smallest ones to $300 on up for larger, more elaborate specimens.
Besides the Scream Queens, Fenton also takes and sells another line of highly unusual photographs. They look like pockmarked volcanic landscapes -- a bit grotesque, but colorful and harshly beautiful. But they are actually highly magnified photos of…rust. About nine years ago, Fenton began noticing the interesting colors, textures, and patterns rust creates on car bodies and metal equipment, often as he was working to repair and repaint them. He now sells his 11 x 14 "Rust Gallery" prints for $30 each.
The artist takes a do-it-yourself approach to advertising and promotion, and has mounted a grass-roots campaign that utilizes email, his Web site, flyers, postcards, and press releases. "You spend a lot of time on promotions," Fenton says. "Explaining (to businesses) how to display the monsters, and what they are; and also explaining the Scream Queen concept." He and his creatures have participated in many art shows and exhibits, visiting galleries, dance clubs, libraries, businesses, and arts festivals. Most of these were in western Pennsylvania, though he's also traveled as far away as Virginia. Fenton has more plans for the future, too: "I'd like to have a gallery exhibit of the Scream Queen photos, or get them published in a print magazine. Or a calendar -- a calendar would be cool."
Fenton says he enjoys the creative challenges of designing the monsters and the Scream Queen photo shoots, but it's like alchemy -- it's always a surprise to him what his instinctive combinations yield in the end. "My favorite part," says the artist, "is seeing how the photos turn out, because you just never know. The Scream Queens are especially hard to predict or categorize, but that's also their uniqueness."
www.genefenton.com
