A few months ago my friend Cory stopped by the house with a piece of plywood and asked me to paint a bigfoot for him. He wanted a basic bigfoot painted on a 8′ x 4′ piece of plywood cut out with a jigsaw for him to put in his yard. This project happened while I was thinking on what my big project will be for the winter. While working on this, I quickly envisioned a whole clan of these eight foot monsters sauntering off to some unknown destination. And so, a project is born.

Right now, this is the concept: Twenty 8′ x 4′ “creatures” in an outdoor open space in a row. They will be heading in the same direction and lit from the bottom. I’m unsure if they’ll be parading or migrating, but they all have the same goal. All will be very different in species and personality. I have most of them sketched out and the creatures include aliens, scarecrows, robots, zombies, anthropomorphic plants, animals and appliances. And there’s just a bunch that can’t quite be defined, but fall into a puppety or eyebally or gloopy category.

Where is this going to be installed and displayed? I have a few ideas, but have to get the pitch on paper and sell it to the right organization. Basically, I’m envisioning an outdoor event space with excess real estate (probably 200-400 linear feet) that can be viewed from afar or close up.

How is this going to be financed? That’s the big question for a big idea. I have a good concept of what it’s going to cost and will have to get some up-front investment. I think I’ll approach this from several directions including crowdfunding, grants, and targeted investors.

Right now this seems kind of overwhelming. This is bigger than anything I’ve ever done, there’s a lot of moving parts and a lot of new business avenues I need to explore. But I’m talking about it with the right people, taking actionable steps to make it happen and more importantly I’m confident in my belief that this is happening.