If you’ve driven around Sterling’s Chestnut Run neighborhood this month, you may have seen a sculptor at work in the driveway at 202 Markwood Drive.

The artist, John Bennett, opens an informal outdoor studio every year on the first weekend in October. For about six hours each Saturday and Sunday throughout the month, he assembles the creatures he’s created over the past 15 or 20 years for a Halloween showing on his front lawn.

Recently, he’s been temporarily stumped by this year’s newest creation – a scorpion made of crutches.

“The real problem is, I assemble things and they don’t stand on their own,” he said. “They have to be supported. I have to put in an armature after the fact.”

The most recent challenge with the scorpion is creating the proper bracing for the arthropod’s long curving tail. Bennett had been hoping to make the eight-legged predator entirely out of crutches, but is beginning to think that other materials may be needed for the effect he has in mind.

Once the architectural details are straightened out, Bennett will paint the scorpion with a fluorescent paint that results in a particularly eerie glow when the creature is illuminated by the black lights set up around his front lawn. In the ominous lighting, the supports will become invisible and the creature will appear to lurk on its own in the grass near the street.

The scorpion will join a menagerie of 15 other creatures this year, all constructed from a variety of everyday materials that Bennett finds in thrift shops, dollar stores and hardware stores. From time to time, he tries to lure his wife, Betsy, into helping him find the materials for his art.

“She was going to Costco the other day and asked if I needed anything,” he said. “I said ‘See if you can find a trash can that opens on the top that looks like a grasshopper.’”

The neighbors seem to enjoy the temporary sculptural zoo. When Tim and Patty Duncan walked by, they stopped for a brief chat with Bennett.

“My daughter likes the turtle,” Patty said.

Bennett offered a closer look at the helmet that was used for the turtle’s shell.

“You can get an exterminator for that,” another neighbor called out with a smile as he stopped his car to take a photograph to send to his grandson.

The neighbors began reminiscing about a former Chestnut Run neighbor who provided a Halloween spook-tacular in his own yard until he moved away a few years ago. That display included a couple of real coffins (bought online as “scratch and dents,” according to one neighbor), a graveyard, a guillotine and a fog-making machine.

As dusk falls, the sculptures take on a phantom glow, even before the black lights are fired up. And, as darkness cloaks the neighborhood, the sculptures seem to come to life in an array of brilliant hues.

Bennett plans to keep the display up until the weekend after Halloween and, depending on the weather, the installation could remain on his lawn until mid-November.

Directions to 202 Markwood: From route 7 west, turn right onto Palisade Parkway, take the first left onto Triple Seven Road, turn right onto Regina Drive, turn right onto Markwood. You’ll find 202 Markwood on the left.

Sculptor John Bennett creates a scorpion for his annual Halloween parade of creatures. Photo/courtesy K. Felix.