Getting a Scare From More Than Just Your Costume.

by Ryan Hess

From The Penn , Oct 29, 1999

Indiana PA--Two years ago, on Halloween night, they met for the first time. She saw him and admired the horns coming out of his demon skull. A year later, they met again. This time his claws and big, but eyes caught her attention. They got together and bore creatures of horror, science and imagination.
 
This isn't a tale of ghoulish star-crossed lovers. It's a tale of Gene Fenton and Lisa Omasta, two Indiana artists who share an interest and pastime in making dinosaurs, bugs and other creatures out of papier-mache. They met at a Halloween party two years ago when Omasta noticed the papier-mache fixtures Fenton used for his Halloween costume. At the time, Fenton was also working with modeling in the medium. The two got to talking and eventually started collaborating.
 
You might have seen their works or posters promoting them around town. The Costume Shop, on North Sixth Street, is displaying Omasta's "Three Mile Island Spider." Over the summer, Fox's Pizza in Clymer, bought a fox Fenton made for the Brush Valley Fire Company's support auction. Also, the two say, Café Curio and the Amazing Adventures comic book store on Philadelphia Street have expressed interest in putting their pieces on display.
 
Some of the creatures Fenton, who graduated from IUP with a fine arts degree and went on to pursue the subject in graduate school at Long Island University, have made their way out into the world. He has work ending its run Saturday at a show in the Studio Z Gallery in Pittsburgh and pieces have been included in half-a-dozen exhibits and galleries around the nation.

Fenton has been practicing his papier-mache art in his spare time for about four years and Omasta began working with him in January. For Fenton, papier-mache came from wanting to get into modeling but not having the facilities or resources to work with clay.

For Omasta, who gave a presentation on the art Wednesday at Homer-Center Elementary School, "it's cheap entertainment and something fun to do. "I have never seen anybody around here, or where I lived in Wisconsin, who did something like this," she said. "I think it's something that hopefully will make a big comeback. I don't think there is anybody that can say they can't afford to do papier-mache."

Fenton, however, isn't keeping his hopes up for a papier-mache movement. According to him, papier is a bit harder to work with than clay, a medium that if messed up in the modeling stage, can be rolled up into a ball and work can start over. With papier-mache, layers have to go on one at a time, though Fenton admits to times putting on thick layers of material and fine tuning his creations with knives and sand paper.

The practice, he said, is no where near as relaxing or therapeutic as working with clay. "You have to be really patient and know when to back off when working with papier-mache," Fenton said. "I never know where I'm going when I start out." The majority of what he ends up with are either creepy, crawly critters that go bump in the night, or his interpretation of dinosaurs.

Omasta said the dinosaurs are mainly Fenton's thing, but she is also interested in the more frightening critters. Both admit to being inspired by science fiction and horror films of the '60s and '70s. "Most movies were like, you drop the bomb and you make something really big," Fenton said, adding that the movie monsters also got a few spikes and extra legs for color. "I would say most of those movies are horrible, but I like the designs in them," he said.

Fenton said he tries to avoid pulling critters straight out of the movies and mixes his influences with images he sees in books that have things like dinosaur illustrations. So far, there is a bit of variety in their body of work. Some of their pieces would fit on a lap, while others, like Fenton's 50 lbs. 3-foot-by-3-foot Beetle, take up a bit more room.

In the future, Omasta said she is looking to do a hatching dinosaur egg which could be part of a larger diorama the two could put together for display in a place like a shop window. "We are interested in doing that," she said. "But we've got to find someone who is interested in saying 'yeah, come on over.'"

Thoughts of mixing things up a bit are in Fenton's head. He said he wants to start on some figures that mix the features of bugs and dinosaurs and he would also like to play around more with wings.

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