Tom Taggart: Making Monsters and Mischief
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A man of many talents and skills, artist Tom Taggart is creating monsters and myths. Tom has a long list of artistic experience, including comic book covers (including Batman, Swamp Thing, and Doom Patrol), toy fabrication, movie sets, mini-golf design, and more. A New Jersey native, he currently lives in North Carolina.\\xa0\\xa0
Self-taught, Tom stands out because he always puts his own take on characters. He loves coming up with this own designs and stories.\\xa0When he was younger, he didn\\u2019t think he could make art his career. His friend Dave Devries (author of \\u201cThe Monster Engine\\u201d) helped him realize that art could be his career.\\xa0
Tom is creating bookshelf monsters, a natural progression of his clocks. \\xa0These are one-of-kind monsters sculpted into boxes, that can be displayed in between books a shelf. The monsters love to reach outside their barriers. They may transport us to another dimension.\\xa0\\xa0
Tom is a fan of classic horror, fantasy, and science fiction. There is a beauty to old monsters \\u2013 they are metaphors, showing us things you cannot show with human characters. His latest bookshelf monster was inspired by the 1950s Vincent Price movie, \\u201cThe Fly.\\u201d To Tom, there\\u2019s just something funny about a man with a fly-head.\\xa0\\xa0
Tom shares his processes and techniques online. He offers painting and sculpting workshops in his studio. Tom is a strong advocate for other artists. He created a group on Facebook, The Troll Market, for artists to help each other and promote each other\\u2019s work. Tell the artists in your life that you appreciate them. \\xa0
Tom has a wide-variety of non-art related job experience also, including cheese consultant, pool boy, nursery worker, and movie usher. \\xa0He could write a book on how fun it was to work in a theater. \\xa0He and his coworkers enjoyed reenacting the end scene of the movie \\u201cFootloose.\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0
One of Tom\\u2019s fantasies is to create an art-based haunted house. He would get his art friends together to make a spooky house \\u2013 with cool art, monsters, and more. Each artist would be given a room to go wild. One room might have all tentacles, the next a gothic design, a funny one, etc. We\\u2019d love to see this fantasy come to life someday.\\xa0\\xa0
Here\\u2019s where to find him:\\xa0
Visit the podcast web site at https://www.halloweenartandtravel.com\\xa0\\xa0