The idea started as a simple desire to put up a scarecrow for fall. I even picked up a hat, shirt, and pants last year, but never got around to assembling it all. Apparently the idea had not fully ripened. This year I realized that I could flesh out my scarecrow with chicken wire. And if I did that, did I really need straw? Or a pumpkin head? Wouldn’t it look creepier if the hat “floated”? The chicken wire is more sculptable than straw. I could give the scarecrow motion. He could be running. Oh! What if he was running from another ghost deeper in the woods? That is amusing and make it creepier. I had plenty of chicken wire and even an extra white sheet. The idea was ripe.

I cut lengths of chicken wire to be just shorter than the legs and arms, folded in the sharp ends, rolled them up individually, and slid each roll into a pant leg or sleeve. I used a larger piece for the torso, forming the neck and head by squeezing the mesh together. To connect everything I bent the cut ends around adjacent mesh, and used some aluminum wire. I roughly formed the scarecrow into a running shape, then set a tall fence stake in the meadow. I did have to make a hole in the pants to slide the sculpture onto the stake (good thing it is cloth and wire, ouch). I refined the shape and attached the hat with wire.

For the ghost I set another fence stake back farther in the woods. I shaped a head and shoulders from chicken wire and draped the sheet over the top. I secured the sheet at the crown of the head and the tops of the shoulders.