Some time ago... actually more years than I really want to admit to... I was attending Lunacon, a New York based science fiction convention and saw my first masquerade competition. While I had done some costuming in the way of putting together medieval duds to wear to the Ren Faire up in Sterling Forest and around the conventions I attended, I'd never given any thought to actually getting my butt up on stage and showing off what I'd done.

Something about this particular competition changed that. Before the night was out, I was hunkered down at a barroom table with an old aquaintence doing sketches on napkins and came up with our first entry that we planned to debut the following year. Thus began what I can only call "Costuming Insanity". This is a terrible disease that afflicts amature costumers and sewers all over the world that compells them to spend obscene amounts of money and hours of labor on a costume that will be shown on stage for approximately 60 seconds. As an old friend of mine likes to say, "There's a fine line between a hobby and insanity. Now where's my medication?"

One final note. These are very graphic heavy pages. There's no avoiding this, so if you have a slow or older machine, they may take awhile to load.

Costumes shown in Competition....

• Threefold Goddess This was my first, done in 1993 and made by Mindy Helfant, myself and help from my mother who's been invaluable in supporting my disease... sorry, hobby.

• Epitath to War Shown in 1994, this was my first Journeyman level costume. Figured since I did Civil War reenacting, I might as well do something that I'd get some use out of later on.

• Daughter of Twilight Shown in 1995, this was one that I got real abitious on, dyeing my own fabric to give the effect that I wanted. Made a major mess in the kitchen and ruined two pots, but it was worth it.

• White Buffalo Woman Sigh... my last Journeyman entry, shown in 1996. Went from Arabian fantasy to Native American mythology and am really proud of the end results.

Now you'll probably notice here that there was no entry for 1997. I decided to take a bit of a break after leaving Journeyman status behind before trying to crack the next level. Actually, taking a break was kind of forced on me due to a) personal illness and b) a vacation in Ireland. As much as I love costuming, Ireland kind of won out that year.

• Snow Blossom Geisha. This was my first Craftsman Costume and my foray into the orient in 1998. I think it's a late sign of costuming senility when you start thinking "Kimonos. Yeah, that should be simple to do." HA! Unfortunately there's no picture for this one right now as mine seem to have run away from home. That should be remedied in the near future.

• The Four Horsemen Mindy and I were working together again in 1999 with the Horsemen of the Apocolypse. After "recruiting" two friends to take on the challenging roles of Famine and Pestilence, we managed to give children in the audience nightmares and I sent anyone wearing white running in panic. Who says bad girls don't have more fun?

• Blessed Protectors. This is the ultimate tribute to the television show "The Sentinel" and our love of the designs and animals of South America. We showed it at Lunacon and CostumeCon in 2000 and took home a lot of awards for them. I'm especially proud of this monster.

• Naja Rani. My first crack at the Master Level and my first work in Hindi mythology. It came out fairly well, and I was really proud of how the painting came out. Unfortunately I lost about four inches in my hips and my tail didn't fit quite right. Let that be a lesson to all of you who are losing weight... re-measure everything before you try to take it on stage! Oh well, there's always room for improvement. PICTURES COMING SOON!

Non-Competative Costumes

These are costumes that I've put together to wear at events with my medieval reenacting group and for trooping around Ren Faire and conventions. It started out so simply... a poet shirt, leggings and boots... then I decided to start dressing like a girl and discovered the joys of wearing a corset to properly display my... well, you'll see.

COMING SOON....

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