Halloween at our house

Every Halloween I look forward to my daughter's ideas for her costume. Naturally I loved her idea this year to go as Holly Golighty from Breakfast at Tiffany's. It's one of her favorite movies and she adores Audrey Hepburn. I was very sleepy, when I had to get up really early to tease her hair into a beehive.






These are some Halloween set ups around our home.

A Most Memorable Halloween Party

Our good friend, the talented Mr. Lucky was so kind to take us along to an extraordinary Halloween party. The party was held in a mansion and the decor was absolutely over the top. I was told that all the Halloween decoration will be gone the next day, but as you can see from the photos there was enough none Halloween related items that would stay. I have never seen more stuffed animals, dolls and taxidermy in one location, except at a store. It was an awe inspiring scenario, but also made me reflect critically on my own collectors bug. Obviously the designer's tenet of "less is more" wasn't followed in this mansion.

Mr. Lucky and the skull covered piano bar, where he later sang and entertained the guests.

Cool taxidermy!
More is more!
The surreal set ups often rivaled modern art installations.


Mr. Lucky, Abe and Ivory. In front Scott

I came as a dead girl, freshly bitten by a vampire, but not yet one myself.


This scene reminds me of the movie Blade Runner, when Daryl Hannah pretends to be a doll in the inventors apartment. David also looks like he is part of the decor and blends in perfectly!



Yes, it is a real moose!

Love Pee Wee Dolls!

Dead girls have fun with tigers.

Many babies are climbing up a giraffe: unsettling!

Scott is enjoying the company of the fabulous Allison Lovejoy and her friends. Allison performed some songs from her musical "The seven deadly pleasures"

My darling husband

Bats and Hats

I can't remember where I found this image. I wish I could wear this fabulous bat hat this coming Friday with my vintage black velvet cape!

Happy Goth!

I always loved Goth, but Halloween is the perfect season to read this amusing and informative article by Cintra Wilson in the New York Times about the Goth Phenomena :

Perhaps one teenager too many lay awake after midnight, unable to get Edward Gorey’s disturbing Black Doll image out of his head. Maybe a girl with 14 piercings in each ear sang Siouxsie and the Banshees’s “Cities in Dust” to her cat enough times to warp the entire light spectrum.

But there was a distinct point in San Francisco, in the late 1980s, when all the postpunk wardrobes of my extended tribe — a lower Haight-Ashbury aggregate of motorcyclists, college dropouts, would-be artists and nightclub workers — turned as abruptly and completely black as if a wall of ink had crept up from the Pacific and saturated everything, save for occasional outcroppings of little silver skulls.

Secretly I nursed grandiose ideas that my funereal vintage attire aligned me with beatniks, existentialists, Zen Buddhists, French Situationists, 1930s movie stars and samurai. (In reality, my style could probably have been more aptly described as “Biker Madonna with mood disorder.”)

We were all young and poor: If your clothes were all black, everything matched and was vaguely elegant (especially if you squinted). Entropy was a thrifty, built-in style; if your tights ripped into cobwebs, that, too, was a look.

We lived in squalid tenements and worked until 4 a.m. Goth was a fashion response to doing infrequent laundry and never seeing the sun. A Northern California anti-tan could be an advantage if you made yourself even paler. On the bright side, our new monochromism was helpful to community building: We were able to recognize our neighbors as well as if we had all adopted regional folk costume. You knew you could rely on your blackly attired ilk to answer questions like, Hey, where should I go to get my 1978 Triumph Bonneville repaired/get green dreadlocks/get the word Golgotha tattooed in five-inch letters across my back/buy jimson weed/cast a reverse love spell for under $14/(insert your vaguely but harmlessly sinister demimonde activity here)?

“ ‘Gothic’ is an epithet with a strange history, evoking images of death, destruction, and decay,” the fashion historian Valerie Steele writes in “Gothic: Dark Glamour” (Yale University Press), a new coffee-table book, written with Jennifer Park. An exhibition of the same name, curated by Ms. Steele at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, unpacks the evolution of goth in fashion from its early beginnings in Victorian mourning to its most current expressions.

click text for the complete article.

New Halloween Classes

Want to do something creative? Are you bored with store-bought decorations? Come and join me at The Workshop, where I'll be teaching some Halloween themed classes this month.
Just visit The Workshop website to sign up.

Wickedly Whimsical Witches

with Elisabeth Alexander

This Halloween themed class is perfect for trying your

hand at collage with different papers, images and

stamps. Using your own face (or that of a family

member or friend*) you'll create some whimsical

witches. The paper doll is actually a card that can

be given to somebody or just placed on your mantel

as a Halloween decoration.

*We'll also have a selection of vintage faces to choose from

Sunday, October 19 1:00 - 4:00

$50/class fee + $10/materials fee

Stamp Art Series

with Elisabeth Alexander

Carve your own rubber stamps and print personalized edition note cards and other
stationery items. Learn tips and tricks to easily use and convert found images or draw your own.
We’ll also cover embellishments with different inks, glitter and embossing powders.

Sunday October 26 1:00 - 4:00 Halloween & Day of the Dead
Monday, November 3 6:00 - 9:00 Fall Table Settings
Tuesday, December 9 6:00 - 9:00 New Years Cards

$50/class (or $150/for all four classes) + $10/materials fee

Halloween Costume 2005

Here is another of my favorite costumes I wore in 2005: Frida Kahlo . Scott had bought this wacky mask in Penang , Malaysia.

Halloween Box

Yes, it is true I haven't been in my usual "Happy Halloween Celebration Mood"! I blame serious burn out from last year. sometimes one has to take a break. Nonetheless a little art therapy is a well known remedy against burn out and so I worked on this mixed media collage box all last week, trying to find my inner spooky self.

Halloween Girls

Valentina came up with an unusual costume this year: Head in a fish tank! She also wore a Pierrot hat, that we had purchased at a trip to Haight/Ashbury with her good friend "Clara Bow".

Halloween Display

The display on my sideboard features , of course, a Halloween theme. the pumpkin sculptures are by Nicol Sayre. She is the creator of wonderful whimsical decorations. The wire basket with moss makes a perfect nest for my hand dyed Halloween eggs. This idea came from Martha Stewart.

Halloween party

Last year's Halloween party was a tour de force. I went all out and created this ghoulish buffet. My inspiration came from the old Baroque still life paintings, called Vanitas. I worked on this set up for a week and borrowed many items from my friends. Catharine was so kind to give me some items from her taxidermy collection, Ellie offered her vintage silver, Pam had a crocodile's head. The beautiful, but scary flower arrangement (who knew that a flower arrangement could be scary) was designed by Svenja. Scott and Valentina baked terrible finger cookies and Ellie brought her amazingly decorated cupcakes. When Halloween was over, it was hard to take it all down and restore my studio to it's usual set up. somehow I wish I could live like this all the time. After this Halloween extravaganza though, I felt burned out and Halloween was celebrated this year rather quietly.

Devilish Scott

He/She Costume

Last year I was haunted by this vision, that I had to be half man / half woman for Halloween. I had seen this He/She costume in some pictures from the old Victorian circuses and freak shows. The question was , how to make a costume that will have a male and female side. Enter my friend Pam , a former set designer, movie production designer, artist and wizard in so many things. She liked the idea and immediately devised a plan on how this costume could work. Off we went to the Goodwill hunting for a tuxedo and a gown. somehow the universe wanted me to make this vision come true, because we found the perfect garments. Pam set out to do her magic, fusing the tux and the gown - the result was more than successful: I put on my costume and felt transformed - my vision came alive. Thanks also to Elliot, Pam's very talented husband and a cinematographer, who took the beautiful portraits of me.

Memento Mori : Remember that you are mortal

Diamond Skull by Damien Hirst


1930's Swiss watch


1810 skull pocket watch


Mary Queen of Scots skull watch


Heads up to one of my favorite sites/blogs BoingBoing ! They had this fabulous post about Mary Queen of Scotts skull watch and I followed the link and came to Watchismo Times , a watch collectors blog that showed also the ivory skull watch. This got me going and I added the Damien Hirst Skull. I saw a picture of Hirts Memento Mori (latin for "Rememeber that you are mortal) this summer and was totally fascinated and appalled by it. Hearst contracted a jeweler to create this piece for him. It took 18 month until completion, 8,601 diamonds were used and it costs now 50 million British pounds. I love skulls, I love jewelry. I have always been a fan of Memento Mori. But was this necessary? If the message of Memento Mori is to humble us and show that death is always present, than doesn't this message gets diluted by adding an obscene amount of diamonds to it. Isn't it actually misleading the viewer, because it is so breath taking dazzling? My greedy little it is enthralled with this piece, while my alter ego knows that the money would be better spent on food and medicine in a place where it's needed. Disgust and Delight can sometimes be close companions! Happy Halloween...