Halloween Art and Travel

Alycia Matthews creates joyful papier mache Halloween sculptures. Her process starts with a terra cotta base which gives her characters a distinctive warm vintage glow. She proudly declares orange her favorite color. She loves to wear orange clothes and Halloween socks all year.   Alycia turns to old black and white movies for artistic inspiration. She can lose herself in studying all the wonderfu...

Jeff Osgood's bold line of pottery features historic gravestone art that thrills collectors of Halloween, cemetery, and macabre art. His distinctive work is black and white, and filled with gravestones, skulls, crypts, willow trees, and epitaphs. His business name, Clay of the Dead, is a pun of the George A. Romano zombie movies.    How did an Ohioan fall in love with New England gravestones? Duri...

Interweaving her skills in photography, sculpture, writing, design, and history, Alyssa Thorne is creating still life compositions that will transport you to other worlds. Her photographs are heavy with symbolism, rich colors, duality, and flowers.    Historical still lives have a language of symbolism that is easily decoded with a bit of knowledge. Alyssa is passionate about teaching this languag...

For over a quarter century, Halloween art fans have flocked to Petaluma, CA to collect exquisite pieces from their favorite artists. The original show, Halloween and Vine, has evolved into All Hallow's Art Fest. In this episode, you'll meet the show producer, Stephanie Sherratt.    Stephanie is driven by nostalgia.  She loves helping adults relive the excitement of their trick-or-treating days. St...

Sheila Bentley is creating one-of-a-kind hags, witches, zombies...everything creepy and Halloween. While Sheila will create young hags, her heart really is for more experienced ones.  Her motto is the more wrinkles the better.  She doesn't plan or sketch; she works intuitively and never knows who is going to emerge from the clay.    The weirdest character she ever made was a rat witch with a human...

Jeannette Leary thinks of her art dolls as "little art treats for grownups who don't ever want to grow up." When she started Sugar Bright Studio she pictured a colorful candy store, but instead of candy, one filled with bowls of pocket-sized art dolls.   After growing up in Ohio, Jeannette and her twin sister moved to Florida and commenced working at Disney. Her role as a backstage tour guide help...

Dorann Nelson is a lifelong creative who found her artistic groove fashioning Halloween figures in the Appalachian Mountains. Her art took a backburner while she raised her family and worked as an interior designer/architect for the Department of Defense. Dorann worked on everything from designing a general's office to expanding an aircraft hangar. She only had time to do art in the wee hours of t...

Artist Joey Marsocci is a story teller who uses the mediums of theme park and haunt design, creature fabrication, illustration, writing, acting, cosplay, and more to tell his stories. He's passionate about building immersive experiences for those who enjoy his strange worlds. He is the Creative Director and Co-Creator at the Curioporium, New England's Premier Haunted Shopping Experience in Hartfor...

The Amanita Muscaria is the most famous mushroom in the world. Even if you don't pay much attention to fungus, you've seen them in fairy paintings, Alice in Wonderland, Super Mario Brothers, and as the mushroom emoji. Also known as "fly agaric", they are found all over the Northern Hemisphere, August through November.   The most recognizable part of the mushroom is its stunning bright red cap with...

This is Kristen Stafford, your host of the Halloween Art and Travel Podcast. This is where you get the stories behind the best Halloween art being created today. I couldn't think of a better day than Friday the 13th to drop this preview of Season 4 into your ears.   Did you notice my new logo? It's evolved from its original US passport inspired design to one that harkens back to luggage stickers f...

Isaias Urrabazo uses his diverse skill set to create stunning visual art that celebrates life. Isaias is an accomplished artist, singer, actor, speaker, and costume designer.    Isaias is well-known for his elaborate ofrendas that he exhibits in Las Vegas for Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead (DotD)). DotD is a bright celebration, in which we wait for our deceased loved ones to return to earth....

You can be sure Jorene Lomenzo's heart is racing in excitement whenever she's clicking refresh in anticipation of a shop update or standing in line to get into an art show. Jorene is a Halloween art collector and blogger. "There's so little in life that brings me this much joy," sums up how she feels about collecting.    Jorene's superstitious grandmother sparked her obsession for all things spook...

Picture a broom in your mind. Did it have glitter and dried flowers on it? Have you ever even dreamed those were possibilities? Creative Paskalini Savopoulos (Lena for short), is obsessed with crafting decorative and functional brooms by hand.   She recalls falling in love with a broom at a Renaissance Festival. She didn't buy it at first – but she found as she was walking around she couldn't get...

Have you ever realized that an art collection can have the same function as a library? All of the creations by doll artist Jennie Hepler-Takens are stories and her body of work is her book. Every doll Jennie creates tells a story.  Sometimes she even continues to work on a character's story long after he or she is settled into their new home.     In this episode, we learn the stories behind some o...

Lurena Williamson of Tattered Moon, is obsessed with resurrecting antiques by transforming them into one-of-a-kind Halloween dolls. She's an outsider artist with an edge of creepy. All of her designs are one-of-a-kind and created without patterns. Even her sewing machine, which "drives like a Porsche," is vintage.    Lurena commenced her career by working at a fabric store. She's had a variety of...

A "Renaissance person" has many skills and areas of knowledge. This is an accurate description of Dennis Hayes – he collects vintage Halloween, creates whimsical art, and produces art shows.   His business name, Runamuck Studio, is a nod to his love of variety. Today you can find him sculpting with paper clay, building feather trees, and carving scrimshaw. His creative style is bright with strong...

Professional eccentric, JR Pepper, combines her love of art and bizarre history into her entertaining lectures and spooky photography. She majored in art history with a focus on female surrealists.  Today she is a Fellow and Curator, for the New York City Odd Salon, a non-profit that hosts curated talks on topics dealing with history, art, and science from 1950 or earlier.   Pepper helps us unders...

"Keeping our dead alive" is the passion of the devoted Gravestone Girls (GG). In this episode, we meet Brenda Sullivan, the founder of this New England-based crew.  Brenda, Maggie, and Melissa make history relevant through cemetery lectures and tours, genealogy work, and castings of beautiful gravestones.   It's no surprise that Brenda grew up in a family skilled in antiques, restoration, art, and...

Becky Kilimnik fell in love with spooky storytelling during her childhood in the mountains of Tennesse. Today, she expresses this passion in her art, design, and podcasting. Listen today to hear her behind-the-scenes experiences of owning an art gallery, upbeat and humorous afterlife art collecting tips, and what it takes to scare someone who tells scary stories for a living.   Becky owns a graphi...

Sarah Boyce's love of the autumn and winter holidays will expand your understanding of the passage of time and seasons. Sarah created Garlands and Gravestones to give her space to celebrate the folklore and magic of the spookiest half of the year. In many ways, holidays celebrate the seasons and serve as markers of time. Sun dials are just one example of a visual for that passage.   Sarah loves hi...

What do you think of when you hear the word cemetery? Spooky? Do you think history and art museum? If you haven't, you should! This episode explores some common symbols found in Victorian era cemeteries in the US.   Trigger Warning: Grief, loss, child loss   Some examples of the symbolism covered:   Broken columns symbolize the end of life, usually one cut short   Snapped flowers and buds symboliz...

Sharon Bloom is a visual artist and teacher who LOVES Halloween. While her education is in painting and print making, today she is best known in the Halloween art world for her vivid Halloween themed hand-built ceramics. She enjoys clay because it gives her a chance to work dimensional.    A life-long learner, Sharon is always trying out new technology, tools, and techniques. She's had such variet...

Artist Joey Marsocci is a story teller who uses the mediums of theme park and haunt design, creature fabrication, illustration, writing, acting, cosplay, and more to tell his stories. He's passionate about building immersive experiences for those who enjoy his strange worlds.    Joey knew he wanted to be in arts and entertainment since childhood. He loved watching scary movies like Jaws and figuri...

Ellen Gee has dedicated her life to Halloween. It manifests in her music and fashion choices, home decorating, and career. Ellen is an artist, publisher, writer, and event planner – all in the theme of Halloween and horror.    Ellen has embraced goth since childhood. As a child, she identified with the strong female leads in The Addams Family and The Munsters . Lily Munster and Morticia Addams ser...

Kristen Beason is creating cheeky folk art for Halloween merrymaking. She desires to make the holiday memorable for collectors, friends, and family.    Kristen traces her fascination with witches back to childhood. She enjoyed dressing up as Witchiepoo from the TV show H. R. Pufnstuf. She constantly drew witches on her handwriting paper in elementary school. She loves the illustrations in the chil...