By A.Jade Munsie
While Halloween is in the books for another year, Edmonton’s Sonic 102.9 afternoon host, Lauren Hunter, continues to make headlines across the globe with this year’s Suez Canal-inspired costume, the Everstuck.
Recognized over the past years for her outstanding creations, Hunter, a graduate of NAIT’s Radio and Television program, became a viral sensation with her costume-creation of the redeveloped Walterdale Bridge back in 2017.
“It was something that I wanted to do for our listeners. I knew our listeners would get a kick out of it, and I remembered the Walterdale Bridge was really topical that year. It had just finished being constructed,” said Hunter.
Hunter finds joy and individuality in her costumes and inspires to give the Sonic audience something to smile about.
“They really, honestly are a labour of love for the listeners because I don’t know if I would put sixty hours into something I was just going to wear to a party for a night. But knowing how much our listeners have loved them over the years, I feel like it’s my duty to our listeners now like I have to entertain them and give them a smile at Halloween,” said Hunter.
While Hunter keeps tabs on Edmonton inspirations, the inspiration for this year’s Suez Canal Everstuck came from a place of searching for the light and fun within a serious pandemic and a problematic event.
“This year I just looked for stories that are fun. [The Suez Canal] had a fun element to it where people made all those memes and it was kind of one of those stories you could poke fun at,” said Hunter.
Hunter’s other labours include her 2018 Stantec Tower, a re-creation of WWE wrestler Lacey Evans’ Edmonton viral moment with a police officer, and as it fits for 2020, a bottle of Lysol wipes.
“I always look for something that’s a little different, that hasn’t been done before just to truly bring something different that people haven’t seen […]. I always try to think of, how can I entertain people, what will they get a laugh out of,” said Hunter.
Hunter’s unique, creative, and completely homemade costume creations are helped made by friends who have technical skills such as drilling or painting, and what goes into each creation is a serious endeavour.
“It’s a lot of work to have fun […]. I want to say the Walterdale Bridge one took eight hours. The Stantec one took maybe fifty hours, [The Walterdale Bridge] took sixty hours […] the [Everstuck] was over six feet long, which is quite large. Even the Stantec tower was I think, six feet high.
I ended up having to spend three hours in photoshop recreating the Lysol label exactly as it’s seen on the bottle so I could send a large file to the printer,” said Hunter.
With this Halloween’s costume, the Everstuck, Hunter hand-painted and glued six-hundred kitchen sponges together to recreate the ship’s cargo containers. However, with all the effort and detail Hunter puts into her art, she knows that the outcome always serves a larger purpose, and the technicalities and details are what make her costumes the viral inspirations that they are.
“That’s why I feel like it’s fun to do it […] and go a little above and beyond of what most people wouldn’t have the time to do, and show people like, hey, this is what you can do,” said Hunter.
