At 18, she built Sasquatch statue

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Rainee Brazee of Creative DeSIGNS and Concepts in Whitehall created a life-like sasquatch statue for the 2022 Sasquatch Festival. The creature is on display in the shop’s front window on Main Street. (Photos by Caton Deuso)
Sasquatch mid build and the reference Rainee Brazee used to create the statue. (Photo by Caton Deuso)

Just 18 years old, Rainee Brazee has made some impressive creative projects in her time.

With mother Dawn Brazee owning Creative DeSIGNS and Concepts on Main Street in Whitehall, Rainee has been able to work on various projects while helping carve signs.

“I kind of just watch my mom and learn a lot from her,” she said. “I did the Girls Go STEM program with SUNY Adirondack and they had us do a building project with spaghetti and marshmallows and my group’s structure was the only one that stayed up. I led the group with what made sense to me and that’s what I do, I just do what makes sense.”

The recent Hudson Falls High School graduate created a lifelike sculpture of a sasquatch for the infamous Whitehall Sasquatch Festival this past weekend. Dawn was posting periodically to Facebook the process of Sasquatch and the creative ideas Rainee had while building the creature.

“His head is a vinegar bottle, actually,” she said. ‘And the hands we picked up at a garage sale. We tried dying some fabric brown so it could be used as his fur, but it hasn’t worked out well. I have this small sasquatch figurine I used as a reference and I’m proud of how he is coming along.”

With societal pressure of knowing what they want to be for the rest of their life after high school being pushed on graduates, Brazee said she has felt it firsthand. Projects such as Sasquatch offer an escape from the crazy amount of tension in choosing a possible career. She said the pandemic had a big role in how kids are now.

“They expect you to bounce right back in a post-Covid world and that’s not the case,” Brazee said. “I think teachers expected kids to come back and be like they were before but not at all.”

Brazee is interested in film and video games apart from art. She highlights that the horror genre of both is her favorite and she’s thought about film as a possibility to make the idea of a job not feel like work.

“I’m into horror because of the cinematography that’s used,” Brazee said.

‘Like in the movie Hereditary he (Ari Aster) does a great job with still shots of everyone’s faces and The Blair Witch Project is the only horror film that has scared me, and I love it because it’s found footage.

“I’ve bought both Outlast games and I can’t play them because they’re so scary.”

Beyond signs and statues, Brazee had an interest in pottery. She said she was in an advanced art class when she was in high school and her art teacher, Gregory Smith, taught her many valuable lessons and always pushed her to go beyond her limits.

“He said you are working with Earth which I really like… He was the best teacher I had, and he only puts in time for the students who want to work. The teacher hand-picks the students that are in the advanced art classes, and I started in 10th grade,” she said.

“I’d ask if I could do something for a project differently, he sometimes would say it wasn’t going to work out, but I always found a way to make it work. I would push his boundaries and he would push mine and it was always a learning experience for both of us,” she said.

As for the Sasquatch statue, Brazee has yet to decide whether to keep him or find him a new home. She said she hopes to be able to grow with ideas and make more sculptures like the Hulk-handed monster on display in the shop.