We totally did this Saturday night... #DannyElfman

 Before you go getting all jealous, just know that this was my view of the stage for the evening (I wish I was kidding):

But I also had this:

And this:

And this:

Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh.

The music was spectacular. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra played medleys from all 15 films that Danny Elfman scored for Tim Burton movies. (Two movies he didn't score: Ed Wood and Sweeney Todd.) The Mendelssohn Choir added their voices, and the effect was spot on.

I cracked open my Danny Elfman/Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Music Box the next day (namely, Alice in Wonderland). If that music doesn't get you inspired to create art, you need to turn it up louder.

Weird is the new normal, part 1 #weirdwins

I've been paying maybe a little too much attention to the release date of the new ParaNorman movie, and I think time is actually slowing down as we get closer. So to pass the time, I've been thinking about my own normalness and whether or not my normal would be acceptable in mainstream circles.

As I was writing this, I realized I had too many things to add, so I broke it up into two posts (unless I find more as I go). Part two should run Friday.

If someone were to look around where I'm sitting now, they would be hard pressed to find a space that didn't include some sort of inspirational toy. I don't know how normal it is, but it's definitely healthy. This is the view right in front of me:

Left to right (and back to front): Stain Boy; iFrank; a hand carved skull from New Orleans; ParaNorman; Ice Bat; an ugly stuffed animal that shall remain nameless; American Gothick; ParaNorman postcard (I'll show that better on Friday); Mr. Gosh, Lenore, and Pooty and Ragamuffin.

To my left sits the Danny Elfman/Tim Burton boxed set which has its own dedicated table, of course. This is the vault that gets raided when I have to read or write because I have trouble putting words in my eyes or sending them out my fingers when I have words already going in my ears. Mostly music-only, totally minor key.

Inside a TV stand that would normally (there's that "normal" thing again) hold a DVD player and DVDs: Two sets of Tragic Toys; Tim Burton playing cards; Nightmare Before Christmas figurines; and a Gashlycrumb Tinies lunchbox (a gift from my daughter; apparently she's accepted the twistedness).

Inside that same TV stand, looking from the other direction you might see the Tim Burton MoMA exhibit program; Nightmare Before Christmas Trivial Pursuit game; more Nightmare figurines, a keychain and a zipper pull (I've always wanted to attach that to a zipper, but I was afraid I would lose it, so it's still sitting in its plastic package); Lenore toys; and two more sets of Tragic Toys.

Above me hangs my Animal puppet that I've had since the '70's (O.K. There's my age.) Around that same time I wrote in and asked for an autographed photo of Animal, and they actually sent me one. I was pretty surprised when that happened. I still have it somewhere, and when I find it, I'll post it.

On the shelf below Animal sits a Jack Skellington which was handmade for me by my daughter (I'm not sure the effect I've had on her normality) and a face sculpture you're supposed to put in your garden. I'm not really sure how it works, but I liked his face sticking up from my shelf so he never made it outside.

You know that scene in E.T. where Elliot brings E.T. into his bedroom and starts showing him all his toys? That's me with somebody new. These are a few of my favorite things, and you're my somebody new. On Friday I'll show you more and maybe even a little of how I think I got this way.

So looking forward to Frankenweenie

So so so looking forward to October 5. I want a Sparky dog stuffed animal doll. The stitched one. With a removable tail.

http://disney.go.com/frankenweenie/

Desperately Seeking Tim Burton

Dear Mr. Burton,

I've found myself in a desperate rut, the likes of which you've managed to retrieve me from in the past, and I'm hoping you will be available again sometime soon.

January a year ago, I made a trek to the Museum of Modern Art, specifically to view your work on display there. I bought a membership just so I wouldn't have to stand in line with all the other saps who had to wait to get in.

The rooms that housed your exhibit were terribly crowded; I'm sure we were well beyond the building's fire code. Sardines, as it were. But I managed to see everything, just to make sure I didn't miss anything that might later turn out to be something I would have liked to have seen.

After I squeezed my way through all the rooms I took a breather. I bought some stuff. I ate some stuff and, in spite of the sardine thing, I decided I needed to get myself back in the middle of that exhibit.

So I did.

This time I knew exactly what I needed to see again, so I jumped out of the line that snaked around the rooms and headed straight for the drawings.

The drawings, as you know, were watercolor outlined in pen, so there was really nothing out of the ordinary there. Using the media in that way was nothing new, and had never been a source of inspiration for me. So that couldn't really have been the attraction.

Why was I still there? Why couldn't I take my eyes off these images? Why were these images so much better than what I conjured in my own sketchbooks?

I think what sucked me back into those rooms and set my sparks flying was that unrestrained childlike imagination. How does an artist allow himself to let everything fly out the window like that? The caricatures were well beyond caricatures. Arms and legs and tails and horns and whatever other body parts that could conceivably be conceived as a body part were attached to shapes that weren't really bodies until simulated body parts had been attached.

But you knew that.

Stripes and checkerboards and spirals and dipping horizons added to my acute sense of instability, and all I could do was stand in front of them and try to soak in as much as my little brain could soak in, in the hopes that some day that freedom would spew out in my own work.

On the train ride home I drew. Over the next few months I drew some more. I was inspired and ready to take on my own sketchbook demons and wrestle them into something I could proudly show the world.

Things seep away over time, however. It's been another year, and I seem to have lost that thing. That permission you had given me to create outrageousnous. Those weird images that had been crisscrossing around in my head. And, ultimately, the hope that somewhere down the line it would all be worth it.

Dear Tim (do you mind if I call you Tim?), please send me a sign. Something. Anything. Something to get me back on track. Something to help me find my monsters. I'm afraid right now they're lost, and I'm also afraid they're scared. And hungry. I know I am. I desperately need to bring them home.

Please help me bring them back home.

Signed,

Nora

P.S. Thank you kindly for allowing my family to give me your art book last Christmas and I'm eagerly awaiting your and Danny's CD box set, as my Alice in Wonderland soundtrack is quite possibly wearing thin.

The Art of Tim Burton

Guess what I totally got for Christmas!

(Hint:)

(My family rocks!)

And as if my family doesn't rock enough, I actually received two (!) copies for Christmas! But those nice people at Steeles Publishing were great. They took back the extra copy even though it wasn't within their return time frame (of seven days!).

So I guess it's looking like Steeles Publishing rocks, too!

[Please check back in February to see what my replacement gift for the duplicate book turned out to be. Oh, yeah.]

I've managed to look through about half of the book so far, and it looks really, really sharp. I have to keep wiping the drool off the pages, but still. Lots of fold-outs of extra long pages when drawings come in a series that needs to stay together. Lots of sketches that weren't meant to be seen by human eyes. Lots and lots of inspiration. And drool.

(an example of one of those massive fold-outs)

One tiny problem might be the black linen cover which will definitely get dirty from all the fondling and which will definitely be impossible to keep clean. I made a dust jacket for mine out of an old sheet of black drawing paper that I decided I'm never going to draw on.

I'm a nerd, I know. But I'm a happy, happy nerd with an awesome book with massive fold-outs and drool warming my drawing desk. I've learned to deal with it.

Barbie has a Mad Hatter doll?

Did you know that Mattel has released a Barbie Mad Hatter doll based on Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie?

My first reaction was that it felt a little creepy, but when you look at the face close up, the makeup is a little too perfect, if you know what I mean. Like they Barbie'd it up a little so they wouldn't scare the children.

The downside: it costs over $40.

Stain Boy: My desktop inspiration

I just got my Stain Boy in the mail, and he's found a prime inspirational spot on my messy, messy desk.