By Andrew Brock
The process of deciding what to create for this years’ PEEPshow for Crownsville resident Kelly Soverns came down to two themes that she holds dear to her, family, and pop culture.
“I’ve been assisting and taking care of my nephew who just turned four and he loves Spider-Man everything,” Soverns said. “So, he was the inspiration for this year.”
After finding a postage stamp image that she liked and simplifying it to make it easier to recreate, it was time to get to work.
Now after a little more than a month, the project is done and turned in.
Soverns and her “Spidey-peep,” will be one of the many entries into the 18th annual Peepshow, which runs from April 11 to April 21. The event is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and from noon to 6 p.m. on Sundays.
The PEEPshow was begun by Sandy Oxx, the Executive Director of the Carroll County arts council until 2018. She saw a diorama contest in the Washington Post in 2007 and decided to give the contest a shot.
“The experience inspired Sandy to envision all of the fantastic artistic possibilities of an exclusively Peeps-themed art show,” said Gwen Asbury, the special events and volunteer coordinator for the arts council.
And from there, the PEEPshow was born.
Now that this year’s event is almost here, the volunteers for the event are ramping up their preparations. One of those volunteers, Ray Arnold, is gearing up for his ninth PEEPshow. This year, he’ll be working as a vote seller.
The visitors buy the votes either at the event or online and then use them to vote for whatever entry they enjoy the most. At the end of the event, the entry with the most votes wins the grand prize.
“I always say it’s a politician’s dream because you can legally buy votes and instead of asking them if they want the votes, I just greet them and say welcome, how many do you want?” Arnold said.
Those people buying votes are not just from Carroll County. Many of them aren’t even from Maryland or the surrounding areas.
“We’ll get folks from a lot farther away sometimes; even different countries will come by and check it out,” Gwen Asbury said.
Kelly Soverns was one of those visitors for many years before her work slowed down a bit and she finally decided to create an entry herself.
Her entry ended up winning first prize. It was a project she titled “Marilyn Peeproe,” four murals of Marilyn Monroe made from an assortment of yellow, green, sky blue, pink, and purple peeps.
Her second entry, which won the grand prize, was titled “Elvis Peepsley is in the Building.” This project was another mural, this time including two side by side images of Elvis Presley from two eras of his life.
When Soverns creates these projects, she gets a hand from her husband, who is a woodworker. For Kelly’s third project, “PEEPnocchio,” he played an important role in it coming together.
“He built the entire stand, and he helped with the wires and that kind of thing that PEEPnocchio was attached to,” Soverns said. “He really did look like a real puppet, and it was child size, like an 8-year-old, so that was a lot of work on his part.”
However, Soverns had to go through some tough times when working on “Spidey-Peep.” There was the relentless cutting, pasting, shaping and color blocking of the peeps that she goes through each project.
But she also had difficulty making the mural look as realistic as possible.
“The hardest part for me was making sure that I had the right color red because with pop culture, people expect a certain color,” Soverns said. “I could’ve put any red on there, but it needed to really be Spider-Man colors.”
With those difficulties now behind her and “Spidey-Peep” all finished and turned in, the only thing left to do is wait for the event to start, which is what Soverns is looking for the most.
“I really love the wonder and the excitement of seeing, especially the children, go along and see all the entries and they really have a good family day out of it,” Soverns said.