Never in the long and sordid history of the Mental Shed and my various projects has anything caused such outrage as the recent controversy surrounding my wife Stacy’s dismissal as our daughter’s Girl Scout troop leader due to her association with the collaborative WI art project WisconsinSickness.com.
The situation began with a troop co-leader meeting with Stacy to ask her to step down due to the “evil” in her life and the “satanic” website. It seems she expected Stacy to be ashamed of her involvement with Wisconsin Sickness and quietly step back with a fake story to the girls to explain why, after leading Troop 2601 since its inception in 2008, she would be unable to do so any longer. Not to mention it was a position she was practically begged to take on because no one else would, similar to the many other positions pushed on her in the following years.
Struck by the absurdity of this meeting, I published an official statement on Wisconsin Sickness right here.
Considering how abruptly this came about, without any chance for Stacy to explain or defend herself, we decided the only way to fight this ridiculous and age-old battle between weak, close-minded conformity and multifaceted free thinkers was to take it to a larger forum beyond the stagnant, conservative and uptight town of West Bend where we live.
Within a few days the story became plastered all over Wisconsin news television and radio, picking little bits of text like zombie porn out of context to use against us.
On a side note. the words serial killers, cannibals and zombie porn were used on multiple news networks in reference to my website. I was so proud it brought a tear to my eye.
Nevertheless, by the end of the week Stacy had been officially removed from all of her volunteer positions with Girl Scouts, our all-expense paid trip to New York was being booked, Dr. Phil’s producers were calling us, and the Huffington Post took the story to a much larger audience. I am collecting links as I find them right here.
Many people are smart enough to see how stupid this is, but there are still many ignorant assumptions and small-minded points of view that keep mucking up the entire situation. We have even been getting emails like this one.
What most seem to completely disregard is the fact that Stacy was never anything short of a fun and enthusiastic role model during her time with the troop, repeatedly praised by the parents and members of Girl Scouts throughout all levels of the organization. It has been stated many times that Stacy’s performance with the troop was flawless, and that this decision had solely to do with her “endorsement” of a website which goes against Girl Scout values and standards. A bloody photo shoot and metal shows which the girls were never exposed to had nothing to do with her performance whatsoever.
As it stands now, certain parents of the troop are enraged that Girl Scout Council’s approval process allowed Stacy to even become a leader to begin with, considering her involvement with Wisconsin Sickness and a disorderly conduct ticket from over a decade ago. Being closet druggies, alcoholics and lying backstabbers throwing around completely unfounded accusations that leave a trail of destruction in their wake is completely okay, apparently, so long as no one finds out, but what Stacy does in her incredibly limited free time is grounds for a lynching.
At a meeting this week with troop parents (to which we were not invited) a certain notable couple (who has been throwing accusations around at many local Girl Scout volunteers over the years once they feel they have been wronged in some way by them) insisted that our daughter not even be allowed to remain a part of the troop. Two years ago the husband warned Stacy that his wife would do this if she didn’t get the apology she felt she deserved, citing a similar situation she had incited and fought with no concrete evidence of any wrong-doing until the leader and her daughter had both been completely removed from their troop.
But Stacy is the bad role model?
Council has called a private meeting with Stacy next week to “discuss our daughter’s future in Girl Scouts.”
A couple days in New York made this situation feel so small and petty, but this is what we came back to.
Follow Stacy’s youtube channel here: youtube.com/stacyhintz
Wisconsin Sickness: Official Website | Facebook | Twitter | Youtube
Get your official Zombie Porn Star t-shirt »
My friends at LA-based Mad Chops Media have been working diligently to bring to life their dark, supernatural comedy series about a used car salesman and an auto mechanic who unexpectedly become the only thing standing between humanity and the demon-driven apocalypse.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to be a small part of this project in the form of website and graphic design in preparation for the launch of the Kickstarter campaign and MadChopsMedia.com, our first creative collaboration since they fled Wisconsin so long ago when I was still just a lowly internet pervert with a website, Photoshop and a zombie fetish that shames me to this day.
Anyway. they have put a lot of blood, sweat and vomit into what is sure to be one of the most epic Kickstarter videos ever, working diligently to sell stock in their souls to individuals who believe in their endeavor rather than the cold, soulless Hollywood machine. So even if for no other reason than to laugh at their misery, be sure to check out the campaign and watch the video on their Kickstarter page right here or at the brand new Mad Chops Media headquarters.
Check out Mad Chops Media on: Facebook – Google+ – Twitter – Youtube – Kickstarter
The very first Mental Shed skull box is finished and hanging at the Wisconsin Sickness Brutal Bazaar Art & Metal show.
Where the Roots Grow is the first of what is sure to be a progressively stranger, darker and more putrid series of shadowbox diorama assemblages. Antique barn board picture frame, raccoon skull, dirt, roots, leaves. Every piece of it has its own story.
“There’s an honesty about mortality in that box. I think we are far too removed from death in our culture. It is poignant and it speaks to what connects us as human beings, and as creatures on the planet.” – Horror actor Bill Oberst Jr.
For sale soon.
Interested?
Email me at info@thementalshed.com or use the contact page.
I have a skull floating in hydrogen peroxide in a plastic container that held leftovers from dinner the week before. I have a bag of small animal parts – jaws, teeth, jagged chunks of broken bone. Built a black box onto the back of an antique picture frame made from old weathered barn boards. I have roots and twigs, plaster and moss.
Now I just hope I can bring it all together the way it is in my head.
I’ve been foaming at the mouth to begin work on these dark, creepy shadow box dioramas for many years now, but it has been a few recent trips to the workshop of mad taxidermist Rob Reysen that have finally made it possible.
Last summer I wanted a taxidermy piranha. I was watching way too many hours of River Monsters. My wife said she would divorce me if I got one. Naturally, I had to put that to the test. Better to find out now if a dead piranha could do us in before embarking on the next decade together.
Turns out the piranha was the gateway drug.
Two weeks ago I asked my wife to call around to the local taxidermy shops to find a skull for the first skull box diorama art piece.
She did it.
Willingly.
That afternoon, purely by coincidence, we ended up in Rob’s shop on Halloween, staring into the empty orbs of 250-year-old human skulls tucked away in a cabinet amidst bears, buffalo, deer skulls and foam taxidermy mannikins wearing nothing but antlers.
In the middle of nowhere on Halloween, surrounded by dead things, with a man who’s sick sense of humor rivals my own. For a brief moment I wondered if we were going to make it out alive.
I was always fascinated by the art form – mostly because I imagined every taxidermist as Norman Bates, but also because the eerie realism of motionless museum dioramas and the odd forced perspectives and model environments always gave me the creeps and stirred the imagination.
It wasn’t until I read Still Life by author Melissa Milgrom that I really began to appreciate the craftsmanship and artistry involved.
I stopped in at Rob’s shop Saturday afternoon to learn the art of fastening a skull to a piece of wood. There was a bear in a bag dethawing on the counter. A couple of fresh deer skulls, one with eyes still swimming in their sockets. There was Rob’s award-winning, fully-articulated wolf skeleton. And there was Rob’s work-in-progress for the upcoming Wisconsin Sickness Brutal Bazaar art and metal show.
Partly sculpted in clay, partly molded from real bits lying around the shop, the detail and quality of Rob’s work is nothing less than you would expect from a Hollywood FX company. The latex piece for this particular project wasn’t ready to be pulled from the mold yet, but the sculpture it was molded from was definitely disturbing, to say the least.
I don’t want to give it away, so you’ll have to come out to the show Nov. 25th at River Horse West in West Bend to see this monstrosity for yourself, along with other amazing work by Wisconsin’s best dark artists.
I am looking forward to a long and devious partnership with Rob. Already, my shadow box diorama art project owes everything to him.
The new Lake View Taxidermy website will be coming soon from Mental Shed Studios.
In the meantime, whether you need a deer stuffed, bones for an art project, or a horror prop for a Halloween haunt, you can contact Rob on his Facebook page – Lake View Taxidermy or on his current website www.lakeviewtaxidermy.com
If you head out to his workshop, just be careful you don’t end up part of his collection.
On a side note, I feel it necessary to mention that the current skull-whitening project in the leftovers dish…is my wife’s.
For years now I have had a particular vision in mind for a shadow box/cabinet of curiosity art project that combined my love of strange trinkets with the bizarre surreality of creepy old museum dioramas. Thanks to a chance meeting on Halloween with Rob, the mad taxidermist at Lake View Taxidermy, I am finally working on the first piece for the upcoming Wisconsin Sickness Brutal Bazaar art & metal show.
Picked up an old picture frame from an antique shop last week. Got the box built onto it today. Got one of the skulls from Rob ready to go in the box. There is a lot left to do, but if it comes out looking even remotely like I envision it, I will be making a lot more in the future.
The first ever Wisconsin Sickness art and metal show will also include dark and disturbing art by Matt Lombard, Matthew Wajek, Amber Michelle Russell and more, with some pure Wisconsin brutality by Meth Tooth, Rictus Grin, Obzen, Mass Murder Messiah and Calevodium.
I started working on an image to represent a short horror story I’ve been writing, but as I worked on it, it began to tell a story of its own. So, as we often do when we stumble across the rare combination of beauty and stoic independence, I decided to break it down and enslave it as a Mental Shed wallpaper download.
Download: 1280×1024 | 1600×1200 | 1920×1200 | iPhone 4 | iPad/iPad 2
If you don’t see the size you need, hit me up and I’ll send you a custom size as soon as I get a chance. Email: info@thementalshed.com
Skinny Puppy singer Nivek Ogre is officially involved in the upcoming 80s slasher throwback Scream Park from writer/director Cary Hill, which I am proud to be involved in as part of a freelance collaboration with Rough Ride Creations.
Here is an early Scream Park one-sheet:
Scream Park is just the first film in the “Save the Slasher” campaign, so if you like gory flicks about people getting hacked up, disemboweled or otherwise eviscerated, you can help make the massacre happen and be a part of horror history right here.
Tomorrow I head out for four days in the woods. Last time I went camping, I ended up drunk stalking a skunk with a baseball bat.
Which the park rangers didn’t find nearly as amusing as I did.
So wish me luck, because there’s no telling if I’ll come out of this one alive.
Graphic abominations will resume on Monday once I crawl back out of the woods. Whether I survive it or not. Got some great projects in the works, some more on the way, and a huge horror site launch…if by some miracle I return to civilization. Without having eaten nearby campers out of shear desperation by the end of the first night.
In the meantime, check out some of the latest obscenities from the dark corners and lowest subterranean levels of the Mental Shed:
I have officially infiltrated Google+ right here. Follow me…plus me…circle me…whatever the hell you call it.
The newest member of the Mental Shed, my taxidermy piranha. My wife said if I got one, we would get a divorce, so I figured I better find out now if our relationship could withstand a piranha before I blow another decade on it! I think she’s actually starting to like it. As long as she doesn’t think about it watching her while she sleeps. And I don’t thrust it toward her while making chewing sounds. Apparently that is a bit of a sore spot.
Picked up my new recording mic today – just in time for a really creepy sound design project for probably the coolest and creepiest guy in Hollywood.
Working with Washington County Paranormal on graphics and web design to help gather strange sightings and tales of the bizarre for an upcoming book project.
Lomography-style taxidermy fox photo. From an old barn in the woods.
A public service message from the Mental Shed: Eat people.
New album cover art for sale: The Shaman
The amazing Wisconsin Cannibelle Nikki Farce…Grindhouse style
Get your daily dose of the bizarre and obscene (except when I’m in the woods) at the official Cult of Weird facebook page.
I’m actually starting to look forward to my commune with nature, a vision quest in the majestic Wisconsin woods, my epic and bloody struggle to prove to the lower lifeforms of the forest floor that I am at the top of the food chain. The rash of brutal, unprovoked homicides with tent stakes and marshmallow roasters. Yes, some good ol’ fashion internet deprivation will soothe the soul.
That’s all for now. Tranquilizers are starting to kick in.
Follow the Mental Shed: Facebook | Twitter | Youtube | Tumblr | Deviant Art
A few weeks ago I accidentally stumbled into a marathon of River Monsters on TV. Several hours later I had a new appreciation for the Amazon and a reinvigorated fear of the atrocities lying in wait in the murky depths.
Every fisherman has a story about the one that got away, and every lake has it’s tales of giant tire-sized turtles and fish the size of logs, but none of that compares to the Amazon, where frenzied piranhas devour children and busloads of people. Catfish bark and growl. Gigantic and deadly electric eels left behind in puddles when the waters recede for the dry season lurk in silence. Parasitic Candiru catfish burrow into penises and lodge themselves in the intestinal tract. Piraiba catfish swallow grown men whole. Others penetrate swimmers through the anal cavity and then eat their way out, leaving only hollow corpses to wash up on the riverbanks.
After so many hours of River Monsters, I vowed three things:
1. Get a taxidermy piranha for my desk
2. Design my own grindhouse horror movie poster in the vein of the beautifully menacing poster art featuring bikini-clad women in the water completely unaware of the flesh-eating monstrosities stalking them just beneath the surface from the original Piranha movies that traumatized me as a child.
3. Stay the hell out of the Amazon.
I don’t have the taxidermy piranha yet, but I have successfully stayed the hell out of the Amazon, and here is the official Mental Shed piranha poster:
I don’t have a lot of time to update the site right now as I am currently knee-deep in a bunch of exciting projects with incredible and interesting people, but you can keep up with the Mental Shed here:
Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr | Deviant Art | Linked In
The first batch of Wisconsin Sickness stickers have arrived, featuring the state skull logo.
I have no idea what I’m going to do with them all yet, but the goal is to get one into the hands of every man, woman, and child on the face of this earth. Unfortunately, this first order is only 250 stickers, so I might run short.
Anyone who orders a Wisconsin skull t-shirt will probably get a free sticker for a limited time.
I’m also hoping to get them on the counters of tattoo shops and music stores. Want a stack? Shoot me a message and I’ll see what I can do.
Email: info@thementalshed.com
