This Artis Creates Attractive Hay Sculptures of Pop-Culture Characters

According to Jean Marie Smith: “I absolutely adore Halloween! Ever since I was a kid it has always been my favorite holiday. I was lucky enough to get in on the ground floor of a local Halloween event 16 years ago and went from face painting to sculpting and painting hay bales.

My mission was to make large-scale sculptures to be used for photo ops at the event. They had to be fun and engage the entire community of kids and adults. Each year I poll my nieces and nephews to see what the popular cartoon characters, book characters, and kid movies are for the year. I also enlisted the help of the event planner to do an online poll to further pinpoint what would be popular. But popularity can’t be the only criteria. My first question is always, “Will it fit on a bale of hay?”.

Every year I do a different version of Frankenstein’s Monster. They’re different even though I go by the same picture every time. The hay does what it wants to do, and I’m limited by where the baling twine hits. We didn’t get to have the event for two years due to Covid, so I wanted to make sure we came back with a bang! The event was a huge hit, and the hay bales fulfilled my mission. I saw so many photos of kids and families posing with the hay bales. It absolutely made my year!”

h/t: boredpanda