PROVINCETOWN — The Carnival parade was eight days away, and Noah Church still needed to build a Sasquatch costume, but his order of hot pink fun fur hadn’t arrived yet. Neither had the giant rubber feet nor the Sasquatch-size bikini. For the ordinary Carnivalgoer, costume shipping delays might be a minor annoyance, but Church wasn’t making an ordinary costume. He was building an icon: Sassysquatch, the seven-foot-tall hairy, pink, and, he hoped, majestic mascot of the Gifford House’s Carnival festivities.
For the past several months, Church had been plotting a fully immersive experience around the Sassysquatch character, encompassing a parade float, performances, and decorations for the Gifford House courtyard. There, at least, Sassysquatch had been the name on everyone’s lips, and with “Squatch Watch” advisories posted all over the hotel property, a no-show just could not happen.
The pressure was on, but in the back yard of the Gifford, leisurely stroking paint onto a “Sasquatch Crossing” sign, Church was unflappable.
It should be said that Church has had a good deal of experience with this sort of thing. Hailing from New Orleans, he has been designing sets and putting events in motion for more than a decade. This marks the fourth summer that he’s brought his talents to Provincetown, where he and his partner, Alan Giacoletto, who is better known as Faun, have built floats for the Provincetown Business Guild and the Crown & Anchor.
The two share an almost symbiotic creative energy: Faun describes the ideas that bubble up from their shared love of wordplay and banter as “improvisational installation art.” Until this year, they worked as a two-man team, but this summer they faced their biggest challenge yet: they took on float building and staging two venues at once, the Gifford House and the Crown.
Church and Faun realized they would need more than four hands and 20 fingers to execute such an ambitious vision, so they recruited two more New Orleans artists to help with the project: KayKay Fantasia, a sculptor with strong sewing skills, and Clay Mazing, a theater maker and performance artist. Their plan is to set Camp Gifford in motion for the festival weekend with live circus performances and a talent show open to all on Friday, Aug. 22.
Back in New Orleans, these four are part of a krewe that hosts an annual Easter parade, and the strong collaborative relationship among them is evident. They work and talk in tight mental sync, finishing each other’s sentences with a playful, punning sense of humor that perfectly complements the visual style of their sets.
For the past two weeks, they have been working 12-hour days, transforming the Gifford House courtyard into a candy-colored summer camp fantasyland festooned with patchwork pennants and rainbows, quippy notices, and, everywhere you look, the telltale signs of the Sassysquatch.
Clay considers her to be the mascot of Sassysquatch National Forest. According to Faun, she’s a representation of the wisdom of the Earth, coming to help us evolve. Church sees her as a shapeshifter who comes to us every Carnival in a new form, a manifestation of the energy of this town, a place where he felt immediately welcome and surrounded by generosity and friends.
To prepare for a possible personal encounter with Sassysquatch herself, Faun advises Carnivalgoers to “Let your Squatch flag fly.” That can mean you’ll “dress campy, or just be at camp; the only rule is to be yourself,” he says. Sassysquatch loves us just the way we are.
There was a short pause after Faun finished speaking and at just that moment Church’s phone rang. Good news: the long-delayed delivery of fake fur had arrived.
