Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
On the "List of the Unexpected" Dr. Arno Klein's masthead for his website (www.binarybottle.com) must rank somewhere. It is a line-up of head shots of 11 years of his Halloween costumes. These, coupled with his work labeling the human brain, make an odd but not disturbing combination.
The costume that I am concerned with is that of Seed Man - a far more benign looking persona than Dog Food Man. With the help of his costumiere, Deepanjana, Arno was topped with a hat of acorn caps, seeds were glued to his face, and a garland of acorn caps was strung around his neck.
I have admired this portrait for several years and decided to add it to my Herbarium wall between Green Man and Moss Covered Me. Normally I don't work from photographs but in this case I had no choice. When the drawing was almost complete I came to the opinion that it looked like the photo but somehow had gone boring. After pondering the problem I realized my only hope for rescuing the image might be to paste seeds on part of it.
The combination I use of watercolor and color pencil is confusing to many viewers who can't identify the medium. This work takes the problem a step farther by combining the real with the unreal yet blending them so that at a slight distance everything appears unified.
The frame for this drawing is from the collection of my cousin Carol's husband, Lee. In the four corners I glued glass acorns which have real acorn tops - another unexpected combination.
I hadn't seen this drawing! I love it. Seedman was definitely one of his better costumes. (Better than Mop-head for sure.)
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