Babadook Objects

Babadook Wall Masks. This is part of an exploartion of silent horror movie imagery. Even though The Babadook is from 2014, the design is heavily influenced by Lon Chaney in London After Midnight. The movie is terminally spooky but not scary. The pop-up book in the film is terrifying. It's about a single mother of a special needs child who accidentally invites an evil spirit into their house by means of a cursed pop-up book.

9/30/25

9/20/25

 

9/5/25

Crimson Ghost Masks

Crimson Ghost Wall Masks

The Crimson Ghost is a 1946 movie serial about a supervillain in a creepty skull mask without any superpowers who tries to steal military-grade experimental technology for criminal purposes. The technology includes drugs that bend one's mind to his evil will and a collar that allows him to stay in communication and will explode if anyone tries to take it off, killing the wearer.

This was part of my exploration of silent horror imagery. The Crimson Ghost was well into the talkie era and it's also not horror, but the mask has a silent horror feel to it. In the late 70s, it was adopted as a mascot by that horror punk band from New Jersey. It has since become a major cultural symbol of spookiness and rebellion.

I have a large mask and a small mask. They're available as a set in my Etsy.

https://aberrantceramics.etsy.com/listing/4496522436/handmade-crimson-ghost-ceramic-mask-set

7/8/25

9/20/24

9/7/24

8/22/24

 8/16/24

I accept that a perfect copy of the illustration/movie stills is not only not within my skillset, but also not desirable. The original is a distorted skull shape. The slightly uncomfortable distortion is why it worked so well for a super-villain's public face and for the mascot of a horror-themed punk band. I'm distorting it further and now I'm claiming it for my own.

Mandrill Mask

4/7/23

Ceramic wall mask of that delightful primate Mandrillus sphinx, the mandrill, the world's biggest monkey. My personal connection to the mandrill is that the Crate Beast, Fluffy, from Creepshow, is obviously based on the mandrill in appearance. Creepshow is the movie that made me love the horror genre. 

4/5/23

3/15/23

1/27/23

After cat interference.

1/25/23

 

1/24/23

We Carry Death Cup

A reference to my favorite movie of all time, The Wicker Man. The scene where the children of Summerisle march through the streets carrying a doll and chanting, "We Carry Death Out of the Village."

12/6/20

11/25/20

 

9/27/20

8/21/20

7/31/20

Joint O' Beast

This is based on a design from a digital collage version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It was one of the dishes on the table from the dinner scene. It was based on an earlier scissors-and-glue collage of the same story about 5 hip teenagers from Texas who go to check on their ancestral home in the country after reports of desecration of the family cemetery. Their car breaks down and they go to ask the neighbors for help and the neighbors turn out to be cannibalistic ghouls.

Failed to capture the feeling of the collage version and I eventually purged it. 

Crate Beast Pope Bust

This is an interpretation of the Crate Beast from the movie Creepshow.  It's wearing a pope's miter because I was considering it as a candidate for the main figure on the Hierophant Tarot card but I chose a mandrill pope instead.

Babadook Sculpture

This is a sculptural interpretation of the monster from The Babadook. I was expecting the manganese oxide to come out black instead of brown.  This is one of my very favorite horror films.  Great directing, great acting (especially from the child star), amazing art department.  The film itself is spooky, but the pop-up book that serves to let an evil spirit access to the house is terrifying.  This is based on an illustration from the book.

The image from the film and the pop-up book:

Chatterer Pot

This pot was inspired by a character in Clive Barker's film Hellraiser.  Hellraiser is about a cube-shaped puzzle which opens the door to another dimension and summons a quartet of Cenobites, S&M angel-demons which mock and torment whomever solved the puzzle.  The Cenobites are ghoulishly mutilated and pierced.  One of them has a blank, burned face with nothing but a prominent mouth stretched open with metal hooks with teeth which incessantly chatter, hence its name The Chatterer.

Most of the pot is glazed, with silver acrylic paint on the hooks.

Bird Demon With Its Organs on the Outside

I have a series of very crudely drawn graphic novels I made when I was about twelve and I'm in the process of transcribing them.  This unpleasant creature doesn't actually appear in them, but he figures into the story in a tangential way.

The background and the eye are glazed and the rest is painted with acrylics.

Without a glare:

With a glare.  Shiny:

After the glaze firing but before the acrylics were painted on:

Lips Cup

This is a slab-built pot/cup/mug with a mold of a mouth modeled after Patricia Quinn's mouth in the opening sequence of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.