Afraid of the Dark

Spooks and goblins and ghosties, oh my!

'Twas the moth before Halloween and all through the county not a creature was stirring and that was exceedingly odd cause the time is a wastin' and the holiday is fast upon us and if you haven't started getting ready boy are you in the soup.

There's nothing to get ready I thought I heard you say.

But there is, cause for an artists this is the chance you've been waiting for. There is no one to tell you what to do, when to do it and what you can or cannot do. Ain't that grand?

Laying aside the stuff about promoting your art, which you should be doing at every opportunity like say a holiday where there are plenty of chances for a creative guy to dream up things which never were and couldn't be and make them real, there are so many opportunities that you just have to latch on to one of them and run with it even if you aren't trying to beat your own drum, which you should be doing but maybe this one time I'll let you skate if you just get out there and contribute something.

Like, pumpkin carving. There's going to be a carved pumpkin on every doorstep and table top and most of them are going to be just awful. Since you are an artists and possibly even a sculptor, why aren't you doing something about making those Jacks so much better. There are carving tool available at your local super market for pennies on the dollar and if you get the spirit you can carve up a bunch of pumpkins, support the local farmers and give the resulting artful Jacks away to deserving charities and civic groups and get the satisfaction of doing good like your mother told you and seeing some community art in the process.

What about the family mansion? Aren't you going to decorate it so you can scare the bejabbers out of the little munchkins? Now the tradition is to do cobwebs and gravestones but aren't you more insightful than that? Where's the creativity?

Got a great turn of the century Gothic? Why not make it into the Addams family home for the month, not so well housed, try something a little more modern, say mud spattered windows and eerie lights flashing on and off inside what is no doubt and bad and wildly dangerous lair for something not quiet human.

What kind of treats are you giving out? Are you taking the easy way out and buying that bag of commercial candy at Fred Meyer? That's no way to be, those little devils have been lying in wait for twelve long months and they want something different. Why not make them something that they won't get at the local grocery store. Now do be mindful there are nasty folks out there who spike the goodies with bad things trying to do harm on a day of fantasy and joy, so use conventional treats wrapped by the manufacturer and packaged in your own special way so that the parents don't have a cardiac when the darlings bring home a hand formed pumpkin truffle.

And while you're at it slip in a bookmark with your art on it so that the kid when they are woozy from a sugar high will have something that the dentists and the medicos will approve of after all.

Yes, it should be holiday centered but you're creative, create.

Maybe you could give an hour or two to the school or the library to tell ghost stories, illustrated with your own images? I once taught a group of first graders Beowulf. The faculty was shocked and the parents were amazed but the kids loved it. Seems they didn't know it was High Literature and supposed to be good for them, they just thought it was a good story of a hero fighting a scary monster, imagine that?

There are going to be dozens if not hundreds of Halloween parties and all of them will need adult supervision unless they are for adults in which case maybe you should be going for your own dandy self?

Find a party sponsored by your church, school or civic organization and offer to help man the doors. Then get busy and create and interesting costume so that you look like an amazing Bohemian artsy-fartsy person and not just a parent of other chaperone.

And while you are doing all of this ask yourself why there is no fantasy themed art show going on during the month of October. Yes, there probably are more maritime and landscape artists in the area, but fantasy if a filed that is growing every day and won't be held back of stopped just because you don;t want to play. Maybe if we had a fantasy themed art show the kids would get involved in the Arts earlier and we'd have a chance to capture their little souls before television and vampire movies turn them to the Dark Side.

The more time you spend in the community the stronger the community support for art and artists becomes. Halloween is the prefect vehicle for that sort of connection and if you aren't doing something special for all of the boys and ghouls maybe that's the problem.