Psychedelic Harvest, 2024

Psychedelic Harvest is a paper-based installation made for Haunted HeARTs, an event hosted by OKO Studios benefiting Heartsiq, held in the Dayton Arcade Rotunda on Halloween 2024. The night included installations, performances, dancing, and artworks of all kinds.

My work draws from vintage blacklight posters and Ohio agriculture. The turkey, squash, and acorns are specifically inspired by the wood carvings found in the Rotunda itself. The set design is meant to evoke the feeling of a vintage Halloween greeting card, immersed in a corn field under moonlight. Each of the sculptures is paper mâché; the larger forms have chicken wire bases, and the corn stalks along the background are built from wood. The oak leaves are made from brown paper bags. The paint is a mixture of fluorescent hued and glow in the dark acrylics, so they would shine under the red and purple lights in the Rotunda. Foregrounded by blacklights, they shine even more.

                  This installation came to life in a month and a half. It is both my first set design experience and large-scale work in Dayton. Installations are supercharged works for me—a lot of time, energy, and effort poured in—and this was no exception. I am honored I got to create this specific piece in a historic space that carries a lot of personal and collective meaning.