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ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — If you have driven down Chestnut Street, the North Asheville avenue between Harris Teeter and Trader Joe’s, in the past year, you probably noticed a house with livelier yard decorations than your average home. Which is ironic, considering the decorations are dead.
John Nelson, an artist and designer at BlackBird Frame & Art, and artist Valerie Holstein, are friends, neighbors and the creative collaborators behind “Skeletown,” their name for the one-and-a-half dozen plastic skeletons which adorn Nelson’s yard on East Chestnut Street.
The skeletons are a jovial bunch, waving to pedestrians, holding up props and wearing themed costumes.
When I stopped by the Chestnut Street house, the bony mannequins were arranged in a “back-to-school” formation, complete with skeletons propping up giant school supplies, a skeleton driving a miniature school bus and a skeleton class posing at their desks. Banners also decorated the lawn, sporting punny slogans like “AREN’T YOU VLAD U R IN SCHOOL?” and “ENGLISH TEACHERS ARE ALWAYS WRITE.”
The whole thing is very silly and a little surreal, but Skeletown has become a major part of its neighborhood. Interspersed with the back-to-school accoutrement, several skeletons held up signs in support of Save the Woods, a community-led effort to conserve the 45 acres of forest between the Five Points neighborhood and UNC Asheville. The university has sought to develop the land, which has been met with significant local pushback. A Save the Woods petition has garnered over 15,000 signatures in opposition to the development project.
According to Nelson, the Save the Woods endorsement was a rare example of Skeletown tackling public issues.
“It seemed like a good cause, definitely. We usually try to stay away from anything political. You know, even something like that. Even if we believe in the cause,” Nelson said. “Because it’s more fun to get smiles instead of pushing boundaries.”
The artists said that even with the addition of the Save the Woods skeletons, they have never received a single complaint from the community about the display, macabre as it may be.
“Not one bit,” Nelson said. “We try and stay tongue-in cheek about some of the stuff, too, and be humorous, but not too edgy.”
“I try to be punny as much as I can,” Holstein added. “I do a lot of homework because, you know, English is not my native language and sometimes I have to run things by John and say, ‘Hey, is this too much? Is this, not too political, but too risqué?'”
“Once again, we’re trying to keep the smiles coming and not offend anybody,” Nelson finished. “Because it’s not meant to offend anyone. It’s meant to brighten someone’s day up in our current climate, which is kinda crazy.”
While the skeletons are arranged in Nelson’s yard, the project is a complete collaboration between the two artists. Holstein and Nelson have a habit of speaking concurrently, not interrupting but simultaneously talking, even if what they are saying is on two different tracts of conversation. Their approach to Skeletown is just as entwined. If Holstein is making props, painting banners and preparing costumes, Nelson is coming up with scenarios and arranging the skeletons. Close friends for years, Skeletown has become a full family effort.
“I think we both try and keep each other in check,” Nelson said. “She’ll run some stuff by Paul, her husband, as well, just to have a third party. It’s always fun, because I’m all about absurdity, so I might go too far with some of things, and it’s just like ‘No, no, no, no, no, because of this, this and this.’ I don’t think about the this, this and this.”
While Skeletown is the latest elaborate yard display in the Five Points neighborhood, it is not the first.
“LaZoom used to come, they modified their route at one point because my neighbor had all these wind chimes. I don’t know if you ever saw the house. It was thousands of wind chimes,” Holstein said.
“All the wind chimes, we disassembled them, and Valerie and I have a project to build a very large wind chime in his honor,” Nelson added.
The late neighbor was named Jesse Case, a jewelry-maker, who passed away in 2021. By the time of his passing, he had become a good friend to the Skeletown creators. In some ways, Holstein said, their yard project feels like the successor to Case and his wind chimes.
“My husband’s making fun of us, like, ‘You’re the new Jesse here!'” Holstein exclaimed.
“Yeah, because he sees all this and he’s like ‘Oh, great,'” Nelson laughed. “You gotta keep the spirit alive.”
In addition to school, the Skeletown team has created set-ups themed around Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, graduation, summer and a wedding. To keep things fresh for their second year, the artists are considering recreating scenes from movies, but next, Skeletown will get dressed for “Harvest,” followed by a “Beetlejuice”-themed display this Halloween.
The very first Skeletown set-up was the wedding, the centerpiece of which was a 12 foot tall skeleton dressed as the bride. The arrangement was only up for a short time before Hurricane Helene struck Western North Carolina last September.
“The monster skeleton during Helene – because I was up pretty much the whole night – stood standing until the last squall that came through at like seven or eight,” Nelson recalled. “But yeah, made it pretty much the whole night.”
“And then she got decorated with a rain jacket,” Holstein said.
After Helene, the Skeletown display attained a purpose for the artists beyond an enjoyable use of Holstein’s sizable plastic skeleton collection.
“We made it a point to have a really cool display after Helene,” Holstein said. “With all the devastation, I was like, let’s just bring a sense of normalcy to the neighborhood. If we’re the only house that’s decorated for Halloween, nothing in Montford, so be it.”
Only in Strangeville could a yard full of costumed, plastic skeletons bring normalcy to a neighborhood.
For more about Skeletown, follow the Instagram page.
