Galion artist working with Best Haunted Mansion in the World

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

Inquirer Reporter

Inside an unas­sum­ing build­ing in Galion lies an art stu­dio. Some famil­iar movie mem­o­ra­bilia and album cov­ers cre­ated by the artist over the years now sit on tables or hang on the walls. The artist emerges from the back, where he has been work­ing through the night to com­plete new work for a haunted house in Las Vegas. At 10:30 that morn­ing, Sean (pro­nounced “seen’) Rodgers is ready to go home and hit the mat­tress.
The art­work Rodgers cre­ates is not for the faint of heart. While he has worked as a makeup/special effects artist for movies and designed some clubs and restaurants—most recently the Cleve­land Pickle—Rodgers spe­cial­izes in “tor­ture art.” Most of his projects look like some­thing one might find in the “Saw” movies. His spe­cialty? Using baby dolls to cre­ate hor­ri­fy­ing, macabre scenes. You’ve been warned.
He moved into the Galion stu­dio in March of 2011. There is one large room used to design and cre­ate projects, an office, three stor­age rooms and a mold­ing room. Full size stat­ues stand in the back. On one table a baby sits on a rock­ing horse hold­ing a knife. Beside it, a baby sits in a high chair with a pis­tol in its hand and an exit wound the size of a quar­ter at the top of its skull.

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

If Mur­der and Evil had a child, it would look like this.

In addi­tion to dolls (or pieces of them), Rodgers’ art usu­ally con­tains scrap metal and any­thing else he finds. He uses mostly recy­cled mate­ri­als for his work, buy­ing as much as he can at thrift stores, yard sales and on eBay. Other peo­ple col­lect for him as well. “It’s all green friendly. I’m sav­ing the planet one cut off head at a time,” he joked.
He also takes molds of people’s heads and attaches the molds to creepy back­drops. Musi­cians like Nikki Sixx (Mot­ley Crue, Sixx:A.M.) and Dee Snider (Twisted Sis­ter) have already expressed inter­est in com­ing to his stu­dio for him to cre­ate molds of their heads.
Recently the artist signed on to pro­duce some work for a com­pany open­ing “The Best Haunted Man­sion in the World” in Las Vegas. The attrac­tion is more than just a spooky house for peo­ple to walk through and get some cheap scares. It also has a bar lounge and a stage for live bands.
Best Haunted Man­sion will be open year round and is owned by Eli Roth, who wrote and directed hor­ror films like “Cabin Fever” and “Hos­tel.” The attrac­tion opens at the end of Sep­tem­ber, and Rodgers said he and busi­ness man­ager Jack Bruce will be fly­ing out for its grand opening.

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

Sean Rodgers, who has an art stu­dio in Galion, stands by some of his creations.

He added that he is excited to see the open­ing but has a lot to do for the project between now and then. Rodgers will be cre­at­ing 4x10 win­dow pan­els for the main lobby and some other art­work. He explained that when he was cre­at­ing some sam­ples to send, he attached the front half of a doll head to a saw blade. The peo­ple from the com­pany peo­ple loved it and ordered over 200 of them, say­ing that they might need more.
The build­ing his office inhab­its flooded when the major storm in late June hit the area, which has cre­ated some dif­fi­culty in con­tin­u­ing his work. He’s had to cram mate­ri­als into the lim­ited space he has, remove some car­pet and pump out stand­ing water while also prepar­ing work for Best Haunted Man­sion.
Regard­less, Rodgers said he is happy that he opened his stu­dio in Galion, where he also now lives. “I like this town. The peo­ple here have been great,” he said.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Aug 2 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.