The day after Mike Maas and his wife, Jodi, booked a trip to Paris, the couple was laid off from Zia Record Exchange where he worked as a graphic artist and she as art director.

But being let go by the Tempe-based music chain where they had worked for more than a decade had an unexpected benefit — it gave Maas the time he needed to work on his art.
“We got severance and I needed to work, so ...” says Maas, who has turned the unexpected free time into “Go-Go Ghouls,” a solo art show that opens Saturday at reZurrection gallery in Tempe.

Maas’ colorful art is all about homage, poking fun and new twists on what he loved as a child: underground comic books, 1960s advertising and classic B-movies.
“I just make them all wild and fun,” Maas says. Then he laughs self-consciously. “It’s hard to talk about your art and not sound stupid.”

The exhibit is a display of Maas’ life-long affection for monsters.

“I’ve just loved them since I was a kid,” he says, standing in front of floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with monster toys and memorabilia in the tiny spare-bedroom-turned-studio in the couple’s Tempe home.

“I collect them — toys of monsters. I just love what they look like. I always used to build monster models even when I was a kid. Then I started sculpting my own ... and it just kind of evolved into bigger and more personal kind of things.”

His 20-year kitsch collection spills into the rest of the house. Vintage ceramic pieces sit next to toys on two shelves over their dining room table.

“We’ve been collecting since we got married. Some of it’s from before that ... We could always sell (them) on e-Bay for our new job,” Maas says.

More of Maas’ paintings hang over their living room couch. Another bedroom is a storeroom for his work.

Inside is Maas’ most personal piece: “Franken-Harry Rides Again,” a balding, unicycle-riding, purple Frankenstein, wearing nerdy black-rimmed glasses, smoking a cigarette and holding a can of beer.

“That’s my dad, actually,” Mass says, leaning down to right the toy-like sculpture, which had fallen over on its side. “A tribute to my dad. He died a few years ago. He used to ride a unicycle, died from smoking, drank Stroh’s beer.”

“Franken-Harry,” like all of Maas’ 3-D works, was built from a framework of wire and tin foil. The features are made from Magic-Sculpt, a grayish-white, two-part epoxy that dries in about three hours. Maas finished the sculpture with a coat of acrylic paint.

Jodi — who sews all the clothes for her husband’s sculptures from modified doll patterns — doesn’t claim any of the credit for his pieces. “It’s his work, yeah,” she says. “I’m the hired hand.” She laughs and adds, “Where’s my money?”

In addition to Maas’ sculptures, his “2.5-D” masonite cut-outs will be on display. These works are almost relief-
like sculptures — after painting a figure, Maas cuts it out, then adds a wood spacer behind it and attaches it to the background painted on another panel of masonite.

“They kind of remind me of View-Master slides,” Maas says, referring to the Fisher Price 3-D toy.

Maas plans on finishing 15 pieces for the show and all of the works will be for sale.

“Except for the one of my dad,” he says.
His wife adds: “We won’t let him sell that one.”