Short Video

Here's a short video that I shot of the yard on Halloween :) Enjoy!!!

Three Rivers Art Festival Artist Spotlight: Josh Cote

Josh Cote of Cote Fine Sculpture creates amazing and whimsical sculptures from recycled copper wire as well as other random recycled objects. His booth at the fair was jam packed full of his amazing work. Bats and deep sea creatures were hanging from the ceiling, wire bugs were creeping along the floor, a full sized mermaid holding an octopus as well as a dodo bird and a rabbit on a bike of recycled pieces and parts were on the outside. It was a visual delight.  Here are a few pictures of his work from his blog. 

While doing a little research for this post, I found a website that is devoted to a piece of work that Cote created and has displayed in front of his house... a house which is literally a recycled water storage tank.  The sculpture is called 'Death' and the Facebook page devoted to it is called Death Rides a Girls Bike

Three Rivers Art Festival Artist Spotlight: Chris Cumbie

This weekend I had the pleasure of attending a huge art festival in Covington, LA. This festival stretches for blocks down one street, featuring artists of various genres. This year, I was very pleased to see more booths of whimisical, weird, and gothic type art than had been previously displayed. I picked up cards from the artists who's work impressed and delighted me the most, so that I could feature them here since I know that many of you will be interested in these artist too! The first one that I want to spotlight is the art of Chris Cumbie. He carves delightfully strange little figures that he has labled as "C.R.E.E.P.S" out of wood, and houses them in little wooden boxes with different phrases scratched into the back of each display. With phrases ranging from dark humor, to those inducing sympathy for the little critter inside, they bring forth the character of the figure they accompany. His figures have a very Tim Burton-esque feel to them, but also a lot of his own whimsical flair. My parents and I really enjoyed, and many times had good hardy laughs, reading all of the phrases, while taking in the lovely detail of each character. Here are a few of the C.R.E.E.P.S that are displayed on his facebook page:

Here are some other pieces of work that he does, aside from the CREEPS.

If you'd like to check out more of his work or contact him to purchase any of his awesome art, visit his Facebook page The ART of Chris Cumbie

Skull Monument Video

Here's a little clip of the skull monument with the fogger finally built into it :)  This prop was two years in the making.  I'm so excited about how it turned out.

Halloween 2014 on Flicker

Here are all of the pictures of Halloween 2014.

Hope you enjoy ;)

2014 Halloween 2nd Street Cemetery

Fall Enjoyment

The day after Halloween is usually a day of pouring over pictures from the previous night and the arduous task of tearing everything down, packing it up, and putting it away.  This year, we went for a nature walk instead.  It was a much nicer lead-in to November, the month of crunchy leaves and beautiful fall colors,

than our normal pick up day.

Here are some of the beautiful sights that we enjoyed this past Nov. 1st.

Rotting Jack O' Lanterns 2014

Jack O' Lanterns are like wine... they only get better with age ;)

New Orleans Halloween Celebrations: Jim Monaghan's Annual Hallowen Parade

Here's another Halloween parade that takes place in my lovely, spooky city. This one is what we (New Orleanians) call a walking krewe. There are no large, tractor pulled floats; just marching bands, marching clubs, and possibly bike pulled floats. This is definitely something that I need to put on my list for Halloween activities next year :)

Photo Source: Nola.com

More about this event can be found here: Monaghans Annual Halloween Parade

New Orleans Halloween Celebrations: Krewe of Boo Parade

Krewe of Boo returned this year after a 2 year break. I've never been, but it looks pretty neat from the pictures :) Click here to see the sights: Krewe of Boo 2014

(Photo Source: http://www.nola.com/haunted/index.ssf/2014/10/krewe_of_boo_parade_gets_a_jum.html)

Favorite Shots From Halloween 2014

My mom took some beautiful pictures of the haunt. I'm so thankful for her photography talents. Here are all of my favorite shots from this year :)

Notice the little ghost cat peeking up at Edward Gorey's urn ;)

Faceless ghost, a new addition this year.

A few of the new ground breaker, chicken wire ghosts are visible here as well as the new Annabelle Lee ghost bride.

Here's a really good view of the ghost cat.

Beautiful shot of the Raven Reaper.  The new spot lights really did him justice this year.

Huge, ghostly white pumpkin.

A crowd favorite, sometimes mistaken as a 'moose head' by the younger kids =)

Who's that lurking in the cemetery???

Good shot to see the new base for the skull monument as well as my mom's awesome Twisty jack o' lantern.

Twisty again!

The Raven Reaper with his new and improved lantern staff.

I love this new ghost.  This is the banshee.  The wind blowing Halloween night really brought this character to life.

Mysterious ghost bride.

This was the new placement for the Raven Reaper this year.  I think that he fit in great next to the cow skull scarecrow.  They compliment each other well.

Here's the skull monument in action with the new fog system that we built into it this year.  It worked beautifully. This is just an all around great shot of some of the new props.