UNUSUAL & UTILITARIAN
Woman creates spooky art year-round
When Gabby Pellegrin first started watching horror movies as a child, it wasn’t the ghosts and goblins that intrigued her.
She was more interested in how those scary movies were made.
“Growing up, we always liked horror movies,” the 34-year-old Montegut artist said. “I was always interested in the props. I would wonder how they did it with the latex on the face and the fake blood. I love all of that. I would later watch Youtube videos on how to make prosthetics.”
Pellegrin took her curiosity and love of horror to another level when she launched Twisted Mindz Designs, where she crafts shrunken heads, skulls, ghouls, zombies and other macabre art.
“My art is very colorful, and some people would say it’s a little creepy,” she said. “I just like that it’s different. I grew up in that lifestyle. My brother is a tattoo artist and my mom used to do ice sculptures. I’ve always been into unique art.”
Pellegrin began making art when putting on a haunted house for her children.
“I was looking to buy some decorations for a haunted house, but they were really expensive,” she said. “So I went on Youtube and started searching how to make cheap Halloween products. I found out about papiermâché and started following this one guy and that led to me following another guy. Eventually, I started getting so good that I began to do my own thing.”
Pellegrin and her oddities became popular fixtures at Houma’s Rougarou Festival. She also opened a studio in Chauvin and sells her unique products online.
“I’ll start on one project, hit a roadblock and start on another,” she said. “By the end of the day, I’ll have about five unfinished projects. Then I’ll go home and brainstorm with my husband on how I can finish all of those projects. I’m like a typical artist. I’ll start on one thing, move on to the next and come back to the first project a few months later.”
Pellegrin describes her art as both unusual and utilitarian.
“For example, I would take a bottle and sculpt a cat where you can twist the head off and put alcohol in it,” Pellegrin said. “So it’s a decorative alcohol bottle. It’s both functional and visually stimulating. It definitely catches your eye.”
Pellegrin said she also has an affinity for all things Halloween. She and her husband, Matt, tied the knot on Halloween last year and plan to celebrate their one-year anniversary on Sunday.
“We had a Day of the Dead wedding,” she said. “I crafted all of the masks. I made about 60 or 70 of them. As the wedding guests arrived, they got to pick one. They all were very creepy and gory-looking but also bedazzled for the occasion.”
Halloween is the one day of the year when Pellegrin said everyone shares her love for dressing up and celebrating the things that go bump in the night.
“I like that we can dress up and be crazy,” she said. “We do it throughout the year anyway. I’ve always dressed up for Mardi Gras and wear face paint so I can stand out and get more beads. Halloween is the one time of the year where everybody is in my element, you know? They all like the same things I do. I like it year-round, but it’s nice to be able to share that common interest with everybody else for that one night.”
To check out some of Pellegrin’s work, visit the official Twisted Mindz Facebook page.
— Staff Writer Dan Copp can be reached at 448-7639 or at dan.copp@houmatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter @Danvcopp.