Crafty Times

Essay by Tracy Mumford

For a little over a year, I’ve lived in the Tentacle House.

As in “my house is the one in the middle of the block — the dark gray one. With tentacles.”

People talk about the hobbies they picked up during the pandemic: baking, board games, Peloton. I went fully down the crafting rabbit hole. I marbled paper. I sewed my own pants. I started quilting. I made Muppets of myself and my family members, even when they did not ask for them.

The most visible result of my crafty fever dream is the sea creature lurking just below the surface of my yard. Eight purple paper mache tentacles reach up with hungry arms, arcing on either side of the front walk. They’ve somehow lasted through the extremes of Minnesota weather, needing only minor repair — mostly due to squirrel damage. Making them was a feat of endurance. The first was fun and all, and then I remembered I was making eight. There were late nights with the wire cutters and the spray paint and my arms up to my elbows in what was basically cement, questioning all of my life choices.

But for anyone else who has been feeling the isolation of the last few years, the tentacles have been an unexpected solution for me. If I’m standing in my yard, nearly everyone who passes will stop to say hello. Sometimes, cars pull up just to take pictures and talk. A whole school bus of children came one time, unannounced.

If you, too, have dreams of DIY lawn art, I’m here to say that goal is attainable. Here's how:

GET YOURSELF INTO AN OVERLY AMBITIOUS MINDSET

The first thing you need is a questionable idea. Mine was: “what if it looked like a sea monster was coming out of my wood chips?” For best results, you should add a second questionable idea, to really compound things. For me, it was: “what if I made the tentacles myself?”

BELIEVE WHAT YOUTUBE TELLS YOU

YouTube is going to lie to you. It lies to people everyday about how old the earth is and how crypto is a good investment. YouTube lied to me about how easy it is to make waterproof paper mache structures. I believed it, otherwise I never would have started.

BUY MORE MORTAR THAN YOU THINK

That “easy” waterproof paper mache process? Instead of the classic paper mache formula of paper and glue, it requires swapping your old friend Elmer’s for your new pal, mortar. Mortar is the cement mix that keeps brick buildings standing — and, as it turns out, tentacles, too. When you go to Home Depot, don’t think, “jeez, why do they sell it in 50 pound bags, that seems like a lot.” Think: “I’m going to need two of those.”

Have you discovered your neighborhood Buy Nothing group yet? It’s the only morally sound reason to still be on Facebook. If you need a roll or two of chicken wire for the tentacle skeletons, or a porch-full of unread newspapers for your paper mache, or even a little bit more mortar because you somehow went through 100 pounds of it, don’t be afraid to ask for help. It takes a village.

GET READY TO ANSWER QUESTIONS

“Are those tentacles?” Yeah. “Did you make those?” Yeah. “That’s a real choice, huh.” Yeah.

The most frequent question I get is “why?” The variations being: “why tentacles?”, “why are they in your yard?”, “why are they still in your yard?”

I don’t have that profound of an answer: I made a weird thing. Other people like to stop and chat about that weird thing.

We should all make more weird things.