Dark and Creepy

I used to make a lot of copper foil stained glass but it’s rather tedious, toxic, and requires a dedicated work area unless you want glass shards all over your house.  On one of my journeys to the craft store I bought a ton of this Gallery Glass stuff which is just a liquid that you can use to make cool stained glass-like art.

I recently made a spiderweb and a Jack O Lantern scene. I did them on the 8×10 glass from a store-bought picture frame and then hung them up with fishing line in my window:

On the spider one I painted it on with craft acrylic after I had finished the main design.

This stuff is fun and easy and the best part is if you mess up a bit, you can easily cut out the part you don’t like with an exacto blade and redo that area - I did that on several sections of the pumpkin one and it ended up looking great in my window…it won’t last as long or have the same effect as real stained glass, but it’s about 1/100th of the effort so for now I am going to make a bunch more of these things

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I’m gunna post at least 3 different craft-type things I’ve had fun making in these days leading up to Halloween. The first was the easiest to make but was super fun and I’ll keep it up year-round cuz I love the way it looks.

I have been going to Michael’s craft store a lot lately, I love the drive out there (here in Santa Barbara) and they have a lot of cool stuff. Almost everything I used for this floral thingy was on sale, I had no idea what I was doing but I looked at their pre-made arrangements to get some ideas, bought some mini pumpkins, pomegranates, black and burgandy flowers, and some peppercorn-looking things, and stuck ‘em all in some styrofoam stuff in this cool urn thing that was 60% off…fun!

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I’ve been thinking about my favorite Halloween-mood-inducing songs…I like to listen to them while I’m driving around to buy Halloween stuff and whilst painting spooky graveyard scenes and carving creepy pumpkins by candlelight in the dead of night. These don’t all have Halloween themes but I think they set the right kind of spooky Halloween ambiance and conjure images of leaves blowing through the graveyard in Autumn and dark misty glades with glowing eyes peeking from the foliage and sullen sinking mansions filled with bats and cobwebs.

Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi’s Dead / Hollow Hills / Slice of Life

Danielle Dax - Pariah / 16 Candles (I gave myself a nice scare listening to Pariah last Halloween while driving a lonely foggy road ’round midnight)

Tiamat - Alteration X10 / Teonanacatl / Whatever That Hurts (these were immediately staples of my musical diet when I first heard them)

Siouxsie & the Banshees - Desert Kisses / Arabian Knights

Dead Can Dance - Black Sun / The Cardinal Sin (”Lucretia waits in vain for the child of her dreams…within her aching womb there burns a funeral pyre.“…and that’s from the less-grim song of the pair :))

California Guitar Trio - Toccata And Fugue In D Minor (gorgeous)

The Damned - Grimly Fiendish (did you ever see the Damned on the Young Ones?)

Oingo Boingo - Pictures of You (ooh this is a very unique song, super cool and creepy lyrics on this one!)

Misfits - Halloween (yay)

Trance to the Sun - The Nun V.V. (”Different evil fates await each and every one of my friends“…wow)

45 Grave -  Dream Hits / Phantoms / Slice of Life / Surfbat / Riboflavin Flavored, Non-Carbonated, Polyunsaturated Blood (no explanation necessary…one of my all-time favorite albums is Autopsy)

Alice Cooper - Years Ago / Steven (”I must be dreaming…please stop screaming“…whatta creepy song! Every time I hear it I wanna watch weird 70’s horror movies like “Martin”)

Bishop of Hexen - Crossing The Borders Between Light & Darkness

Halloween Hootennany - (A great psychobilly-type compilation with a version of the Munsters theme, an awesome Halloween poem by Zacherle, etc etc)

Airn LeBus / Spectra Mori - The Well (OK that is shameless self-promotion but it’s muy spooky I swear!)

Insane Clown Posse - Halloween on Military Street (gross and funny lyrics, lol, etc)

What did I miss…do any of you creepy visitors have favorite Halloween-related music or stuff to carve pumpkins by or drive around enjoying the Autumn Halloweentyme air?

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You must have nourishment in order to cope with the dark and creepiness that abounds around Halloween, or in order to be dark and creepy yourself (depending on your mood). Nothing provides those spooky vitamins and minerals like a yummy bowl of Pumpkin Stew!

Recipe originally from my friend Sarah here in Santa Barbara, so thanks to her for what is now a seasonal tradition

Pumpkin Stew (Airn’s version)

1 small pie pumpkin, skin removed and cut into chunks
2 medium-sized carrots
1 can white beans
1 onion
2 bell peppers, one green, one red or try mini sweet peppers
1 can peeled diced tomatoes (do not drain, add juice)
1 box chicken or veggie broth
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. thyme (dried)
1/2 tsp. savory (dried)
1 or 2 tbsp. corn starch dissolved in cold water (add to stew at very end to thicken, see notes below)
cinnamon to taste (optional)
paprika (optional)

notes:
- brown the garlic, peppers, and onion in olive oil first…try putting a little cinnamon in
- add pumpkin last since it cooks fastest…I brown the peppers and such, then combine everything except pumpkin and corn starch, cook until carrots almost done, then add pumpkin last…once it’s all done put in the corn starch so it thickens…very important to have it thick, dish is much tastier that way
- I think it’s easiest to cut skin off smaller pieces of pumpkin with paring knife rather than using a peeler
- plan on about 30 min for carrots etc + another 30 after adding punkin…whole process is 1 1/2 to 2 hours including cutting everything etc.
- punkin should not be stringy, cook it longer if it is

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I just got this awesome Halloween advent calendar and put it in an old frame that I found at an antique mall. It looks so cool I just have to show you all

The calendar is from Ghastly Greetings. FYI I had to trim it a little to fit it in the 11×14 frame but it didn’t seem to mess it up. It’s now hanging on my wall, much admired, as I happily open the little window things each day as I count down to my favorite holiday.

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Throughout the month of October there is a great show here in Santa Barbara with Day of the Dead and Halloween art. It’s called Noche De Los Muertos and it’s at the Muddy Waters Cafe:

Noche De Los Muertos
Muddy Waters Cafe
508 E. Haley St., Santa Barbara, California
(805) 966-9328

The reception for the show is Oct 18th at 7PM, all ages, or go by Muddy Waters any time this month to see all the dark and creepy art!

Here’s the flyer:

I have my own Halloween painting in this show:

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It feels like Fall already…I have been working on getting in the mood for Halloween, partly so I can plan and work on my new Jack O’Lantern painting but also just ’cause Fall and the weeks leading up to Halloween are my favorite times of the year. I love guzzling tea in the awesome Autumnal ambiance, scarfing down scones, making pumpkin stew, and creeping around graveyards while the leaves blow by and the smell of Fall is in the air.

In order to get in that proper spooky spirit, I have been listening to lots of Bauhaus, Danielle Dax, and other spooky stuff, and watching a bunch of Halloween-mood-inducing movies. Today I started watching the BBC version of Dracula, which features Mark Warren (aka Mr. Teatime!) and Stephanie Leonidas from Mirrormask. I haven’t finished watching it yet (I tend to watch movies in chunks) but it seems like a decent addition to the hearty feast of Dracula movies out there. A couple days ago I also watched Dracula: Prince of Darkness with the most excellent Christopher Lee…fun times. I also watched 3 of the Halloweentown TV-movies recently, which I had never heard of before…they are dorky family fare but still enjoyable cuz there are monsters and magic and jack-o-lanterns and they get you in the mood for Halloween

Oh yeah, and today I went to Michael’s craft store which is rather awesome for Halloween stuff! I was overjoyed with the little tombstones and medusa statues and animated light-up tombs and other zany stuff they had, I am gunna go back soon and stock up on more Halloween goodies since I like to have that stuff floating around my apartment and workplace year-round

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Oh boy is Martin Sheen creepy in this movie. I don’t want to give away much of the plot…how about I just tell you the tagline (from IMDB and the poster to the left):

She was only a little girl. She lived in a great big house… all alone. Where is her mother? Where is her father? Where are all the people who went to visit her? What is her unspeakable secret? Everyone who knows is dead.

Ooh…now that sounds interesting, doesn’t it? The first scene takes place on Halloween…I love that. Stuff set on Halloween automatically gets a bonus point from me…plus the titular character’s birthday is Halloween and she is a sinister 13 years old…spoooky (:B) !

Wikipedia says this fits in the genre of “psychological thriller drama with elements of romance and horror”…the romance and standard horror aspects are pretty minimal, it’s not a slasher or anything, it’s just a rather creepy movie that has a lonely, stage play-ish feel…only a couple locations and a few characters.

Some of the score/soundtrack is dated and almost messed up the vibe for me at one point, still overall it’s uber-creepy, just grit your teeth and the 70’s music will be over in a moment.  Pour a cuppa tea and break out the almond cookies for this one…it’s dark and creepy fun for the whole (deceased) family.

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I think my pigtail gurl painting is kinda kreepy, so here it is. I will have more creepies later, my next painting is a graveyard with a jack o lantern in it.

Creepy pigtail gurl painting by airn lebus:

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I don’t think art gets much darker than that of Zdzislaw Beksinski without being gratuitous…his art seems honest and real, and can be quite disturbing. I’ve seen his stuff around before on album covers and such, but didn’t know his name until recently, so I have only just started exploring his incredible works. I think I need to ingest it in small doses.

I don’t know if I can say I ‘like’ his art…perhaps I am astounded by it, and overwhelmed by it. I am especially impressed by his grim landscapes, endless fields of gravestones and monumental buildings.

Rather than attempt to describe his works, I present some links to view them for yourselves. Links open in a new window.

Online gallery with lots of pix: http://www.gnosis.art.pl/iluminatornia/sztuka_o_inspiracji/zdzislaw_beksinski/zdzislaw_beksinski.htm

Official site: http://www.beksinski.pl/

Wikipedia for more info on his life and tragic death:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zdzis%C5%82aw_Beksi%C5%84ski

It’s interesting to read about his own feelings on his art in the Wikipedia article…’humorous’ would not be a word I would personally use to describe his paintings

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