Celebrating Samhain

What has All Hallows Eve become? Today people go door to door with their children in costume and are given sweets. How this pagan festival has changed since its pre-Christian roots, we think. Well perhaps not so much.
Halloween is a festival which was once called 'Samhain' (pronounced 'sow - in'  - sow as in cow). Until the 9th century AD, this was a time when we Celts celebrated the end of harvest season and coming of winter with bonfires, parties and the carving of turnips and mangelwurzels (root vegetable usually fed to animals) into jack o' lanterns. People would dress up in costume and go door to door reciting seasonal poetry or singing songs in exchange for food. See, it's not all that different, is it?!
The aspect I like about Samhain is the mythology surrounding it. People believed that Samhain (which was from sunset on 31st Oct to sunset 1st Nov) was a liminal time - when the boundaries of our world and that of the spirit world merged and the spirits of the dead could re-enter ours. Whilst bonfires were lit to keep evil spirits away, and the smoke wafted over the festival goers to cleanse them, place settings were created at the banquets for the spirits of their ancestors. Turnips were carved into ghoulish faces and people dressed in spooky ways in order to deceive evil spirits and remain safe from them during Samhain.

Something I notice which is very different about Halloween in America versus the UK, is that here people dress as anything they like (superheros, princesses, slutty versions of anything they like... basically anything goes), whereas in the UK Halloween is still a time to dress as something spooky. Back in England I always always dressed as a witch / vampire / the un-dead and so forth. Of course here I go with the flow and dress as whatever I want. This year I was Barbarella, as I got SO busy with work for two upcoming exhibitions that I didn't have time to finish my Queen Boudicca costume. Appalling, I know. Below, for fun, I've put photos of all 4 Halloweens I have spent in LA. The Absinthe Fairy, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, and then this year, Barbarella.

I celebrated Halloween over three evenings this year. One of the events was held at the amazing Magic Castle here in Hollywood. Wow, what a cool place. If you ever visit LA then try to plan a visit there, but plan ahead as it's members only and can be hard to get into. If you can get in for Halloween then all the better as they go all-out on the decor. Below are photos of the Magic Castle as it is most of the year. They don't allow photography so I couldn't show you the fabulous Halloween show they put on.

As for something creative? I have been working towards these exhibitions and will share info and photos on that very soon. Also, I'm pleased to see I'm on another magazine cover this month. My ninth in 3 years, so let's see if I can go for 10 before the year is out!

My Neck of the Woods

Halloween is fast approaching and it's my favourite time of the year. It puts me in mind of things like Michael Jackson's Thriller music video which I watched and watched to death as a teen. Driving home the other day it occurred to me that I (the girl from a minuscule English village that Brits haven't even heard of), now live right around the corner from two of the Thriller music video locations. (And I was also lucky enough to meet the director of the video, John Landis last weekend...!)

The cinema at the beginning of the music video, where Michael Jackson and Ola Ray watch the Werewolf film, is just 15 minutes away from my house. It's the Downtown Palace Theater.








And the spooky house that Ola Ray runs into towards the end of the music video, is a Victorian house on Carroll Ave, which is 10 minutes from my house.

This is the house - then and now! (Photo not taken by me. Photographer unknown.)

Actually all the houses on Carroll Avenue are gorgeous, and yesterday I took a photo of one of the houses which has been decorated in a fantastically Angelino way for Halloween.

Click to zoom.

But enough about my neck of the woods. Over at Tall Tales Productions I have completed some Halloween Jack O' Lanterns and crows (actually the crows have been blogged about before, here) and as usual, am selling clean out of everything this Halloween. Actually I am really looking forward to Halloween being over so I can stop creating for collectors and get back to something filmy.

And whilst we're on the topic of how Angelinos do Halloween, take a look at these photos below, taken by my little sister in Villandry. This is how they do Halloween in France. Wonderful isn't it?!

Leave it Out

Last night I dreamt about leaves. Tiny, miniature hand-painted leaves. The night before I also dreamt about leaves. This is what happens when you perform the same leaf-making task 400 times over.

So, I've been making hundreds of leaves and completed three identical green pumpkin patches - one for an exhibition, two for sale elsewhere. Aside from that, I have been putting something together for my first appearance in a Dutch magazine, working on some other pieces (which I'll share when they're further along) and... best of all... I met director John Landis over the weekend!

What a great time of year to meet the director of one of my all-time favourite horror films. LACMA did a screening of 'An American Werewolf in London' (a film I know so well I can quote almost every line of dialogue before the actor says it) and I was able to have a chat with John Landis himself, and his talented costume designer wife, Deborah Nadoolman Landis. It's Halloween this month and if you haven't seen 'An American Werewolf in London' (1981), then I'd make seeing it this scary season a top priority. It's hugely underrated and totally genius. Not to mention the jaw-droppingly fantastic special make-up effects by Rick Baker. It was the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Make-up (the category was created that year).

Here are some photos of leaves and the base for the pumpkin patch. The fence is willow, the base is celluclay and mixed media, and the leaves are paper.

From Ghoulies and Ghosties

I love that old passage from a Scottish / Cornish prayer.
"From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!"

It's Halloween this month, I have three events scheduled for it, and yesterday I braved the 106 degree weather and went to the amazing garment district in downtown LA to buy leather, tartan and gold embroidery thread for the costume I'm making... I'll blog about it later in the month once I've made it.

Aside from that I am preparing some pieces for an exhibition of my work (coming up) and also pieces for Halloween this year. Over the weekend I received my copy of another magazine I make an appearance in. It's five pages plus the front cover. See a previous blog post about this project here. The About section of my blog shows a snapshot of all my print features / books to date.

So... here's a glimpse at my workspace, below. The pieces are not yet finished.... just a few ghoulish green pumpkins and squash that will form part of one exhibition piece.

And here's a snap of the bits and bobs I bought downtown. Correctly guess who I'm going to be for Halloween this year and I'll reward you with a gift coupon for my shop...!

A Murder of Crows

Recently I've been working on a commissioned feature for a magazine - a miniature scene in which the central focus is a scarecrow. A relatively quick job I thought, as I unpacked a tidy selection of materials including armature wire, raffia and air dry clay... of course it's 10 days later and I'm now wading through a mass of black feathers, gauze and superglue.

I managed to take a break from this project to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds perform live at the brilliant Ace Theater (an evening of Black Crow King didn't hurt in terms of inspiration), and ironically enough I just discovered a great bar in my area (Los Feliz / Silverlake) called 'The Thirsty Crow'...!

Here are some pictures of this project in progress. The un-finished scarecrow photos were just taken quickly today whilst glue was drying. You can see the final scene soon as I will blog about it here and upload images to my Tall Tales Facebook page here.