of cats and men at Halloween

I don't know how it escaped my notice until this year, that October 29th was National Cat Day. When decorating and photographing this spooky tree to celebrate Halloween this year, I debated on whether to use my cat painting (by local Atlanta artist, Ronnie Land) as a backdrop over this buffet table. Now I am glad I did—even though the setup is more complex than usual. Because many of R. Land's artworks are packed with hand-drawn imagery like this poster done for Atlanta's infamous Little Five Points Halloween Festival and Parade, it all seems to fit together quite nicely. I've never been a minimalist at heart. I like the discovery and surprise found only when many delightful things are vying for one's attention.

These magical and well-crafted mushroom ornaments by Wendy Addison, designed for Midwest CBK hang from a glittered Halloween tree from Target. I purchased the mushrooms from Bayberry Cove. The large "Christmas spider" ornament is an antique Czechoslovakian beaded ornament from my collection.

"Founded in 2005 by animal welfare advocate Colleen Paige, National Cat Day brings attention to the number of cats that need to be rescued each year. It is also a day for cat guardians to celebrate their own amazing cats." I truly like that "cat guardian" moniker, but I feel it is the other way around. I have always thought of cats as my guardians, or muses, or familiars, or warm and fuzzy companions. My father always loved cats and I have been lucky to have had many special cat companions throughout my life. I've only had one dog as a pet. All the rest have been cats. I love their peculiar nature and independent ways—I truly am a cat person, through and through. Don't get me wrong, I love all animals, but I can't escape the feeling that cats are superior creatures in many ways. The feline world and I have a magical understanding.

Frida, the tuxedo cat (left) and Abella, the Bengal cat (right) are my sweet guardians.

An assortment of cheeses, crackers and fruit are a visual and literal feast.

Cats, magic and Halloween all seem to go together. Add the creepy presence of spiders and earthy balls of moss and you've got a tableau that visually creeps and crawls in just the right way. Mushrooms add a touch of nature's magic that sets the mood for the season, along with an abundant cheese and fruit buffet, of course. And if you're lucky enough to have earned the trust of a cat or two, you're all set for Halloween's spooky route to the beginning of the end-of-year holiday season. Happy All Hallows Eve! 

This mushroom ornament is also by Wendy Addison, designed for Midwest CBK. A glass-glittered wire spider from Pottery barn adds a creepy, crawly touch.

The standard pot the tree was purchased in is dressed up with dried moss and an unusual tire pot by River Market Pottery in Kansas City, Missouri, adapted from sewn leather working techniques, but made from up-cycled rubber tires that had previously been bound for the landfill. The perky bronzed metal mouse sniffing for the cheese is from Pottery Barn.

©2012 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland

Halloween parade

IT'S OBVIOUS everywhere this time of year, that Halloween has become the most celebrated holiday aside from Christmas. It hasn't been until the past few years that I've really gotten into the spirit of the holiday since my trick-or-treat years as a kid. When going out with a couple of friends, I dressed as— what else?—a spooky tree. Even though I cheated a bit and wore a cheesy web-bought costume, I did add more fake autumn leaves to it to dress it up. 

Dana and Devin have a moment.

LAST NIGHT, I realized that people—eschewing the commercial— are once again investing a lot of creative elbow grease into their Halloween costumes. It's great to see handmade and over-the-top inventiveness in designing costumes is making a big comeback. My friend Dana sewed her incredibly detailed blue gingham dress for her costume as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz—making it really work with incredible makeup and hair and glittery red flats. With white face and big overblown red lips, Devin dressed as one of the fashion show moments of the late "enfant terrible"Alexander McQueen. I also saw some other really brilliantly designed costumes such as a woman dressed as a framed Mona Lisa—as the live image in front of the frame, complete with the moody background image. There was also a group of new acquaintances dressed as the One Percent, who made their costumes from fake money and got into full character by filling their bags with said fake money and giving it to people on the street, tossing it into the air, and even burning stacks of it while smoking a cigar!

I'M GUESSING THAT next year, I will have to do the same with a costume instead of spending all my spare time on conceiving and designing trees for my blog. I've spent part of two weekends now celebrating the holiday with friends here in Atlanta. Last weekend, I attended the 11th Annual Little Five Points Halloween Festival & Parade. I haven't checked, but I'm not sure if another city that has a Halloween festival and parade. It has been an Atlanta tradition for eleven years now! Local Atlanta artist, Ronnie Land designed and illustrated the really fun and creepy logo for the parade this year, which you see here.

FUN AND CREEPY has always been my mantra for Halloween. The decorations I enjoy most have a definite macabre side, but are always fun and exuberantly creative. That was my goal when creating this "Skeleton Key Tree." So, of course, I emailed the well-known Halloween product illustrator and designer—Johanna Parker, and asked her what I could do with these amazing mercury glass skeleton head ornaments I found. Always in Halloween mode, I give her credit for giving me the idea of framing them and hanging skeleton keys from the branches. She didn't see the final results until this post. It was fun creating this tree and brainstorming with her about it. I searched high and low for the perfect craggy branch and retrieved it a while back in order to let it dry as it did. I even left some of the leaves on it to give it a creepier asymmetrical look.

EVEN IF YOU WAIT until the last minute—with a little advance planning, of course—your Halloween parade of costumes, decorations and decor can contribute to the fun and creepy spirit of All Hallows Eve. You're certain to encounter a parade of fun and creepy characters, whether receiving trick-or-treaters or going out on the town. Here's wishing you a happy, creepy and fun Halloween!

SPIRITED ELEGANCE | (Top two photos and above) This "skeleton key tree" makes use of a craggy branch with some of the dried leaves still intact, mercury glass skeleton head ornaments are from Z Gallerie. Handmade glittered frames were made from clip art glued and trimmed from matte board and the skeleton keys were found on eBay. The scene is set with a faux bois container for the tree, a faux pumpkin with calligraphy from Bayberry Cove and one with a cat silhouette and stars found at Ross. Bright green reindeer moss adds the finishing touch, along with the requisite container of Halloween candy to satisfy the spooks.

FRAMED HEADS | The image used to frame the mercury glass skeleton heads from Z Gallerie was printed from a piece of stock clip art, flipped in Photoshop on the opposite side to match up, then glued to matte board, trimmed with an Xacto knife and glued and glittered with glow-in-the-dark glitter from Martha Stewart Crafts. I thank Devin for helping me with those. Black grosgrain ribbon was tied around the tops of the frames for hanging. The skeleton keys found on eBay were simply hung from the branch with black cotton thread at varying lengths.

FLAMING FUN | These old-fashioned counter-weight wire candleholders by Bethany Lowe Designs added just the right mood. Of course they look great in the photo and can create the right mood in real life, but have to be carefully attended—especially on a dried branch—as with any live flame. The candle holders were purchased from Bayberry Cove.

PARADE OF CHARACTERS | Real pumpkins are painted with flat gray latex paint to look as if they are casted. The simple and inexpensive paper masks from Target were slipped onto the painted pumpkins making this family of last-minute apparitions come to life without any carving.

©2011 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland

spinning a holiday web

USHERING IN the holiday season is Halloween. Alongside the shelves of the ever enlarging Halloween merchandise available every October, the Christmas shelves start to fill. There always has to be a trick with a treat to keep good little boys and girls in line. The Christian co-opting of these holidays had a lot to do with this. Several of the oldest European Christmas traditions seem more like Halloween traditions—tricks for bad, treats for good. The old-world traditions were modified to keep the sins of humanity in check in the Christian world. The meaning and symbolism depends on how you look at the magic and mystery of the holiday season that begins with All Hallows Eve. Halloween has its roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain (a celebration of the end of the harvest season) and the Christian All Saints' Day. Although the latter holy day now occurs one day after Halloween, they were both originally celebrated on the same day. But with the blending of holidays one-into-the-other every year, it's hard not to get them all mixed up (like Jack Skellington did—more below).

LEAPING FROM Halloween to Christmas isn't hard web to spin at all. According to German and Ukraine legend, a poor woman was unable to buy decorations for the holiday tree and decorated it with fruits and nuts. Spiders that were displaced in the holiday cleaning of the house spun beautiful webs all over the tree Christmas Eve night. When Father Christmas visited the house, he saw the web-covered tree and changed the webs to silver. Christmas morning, the family awoke to a sparkling tree covered in silver "tinsel." The legend of the Christmas spider is commemorated by placing a silver spider in its web and using tinsel on the tree. The magic of the holiday season is ushered in by the sinister things associated with Halloween (like spiders) every year. The stories have all been modified to fit how one sees best—religious or secular.

IT'S HARD TO to believe the 1993 Tim Burton stop-motion animated movie The Nightmare Before Christmas has already celebrated its 15th anniversary (last year). In the movie, Jack Skellington from Halloween Town opens a portal to Christmas Town and becomes enamored with Christmas, and the fusing of the holidays ensues to great effect. This movie is Tim Burton's best animated film in my opinion. It has a purely magical quality that stands above many of his successive films. It is consistently rated as one of the best Christmas films and  blends the two holidays in an unprecedented way. It's not hard to see how Jack Skellington was inspired by Christmas, even though his attempts are off-kilter because all he has known is Halloween.
 

HALLOWEEN FESTIVE | (Above, right) The large white pumpkin topped by a bewitched bird is from Ross. Green and orange Polish ornaments are reminiscent of a pumpkin and the calyxes of Chinese lanterns. The cat head noisemaker, along with the pumpkin/lantern ornaments are from Cost Plus World Market, and shown nestled with a real miniature white pumpkin and seasonal gourds (from Publix). The cat head noisemaker's (jingle bells attached with a pipe cleaner) original checked bow was replaced with a bow tied from 'Happy Halloween' ribbon from Martha Stewart Crafts at Michael's (2008). The small bumpy ornaments from Martha Stewart Everyday at Kmart round out this fall-colored collection. 

SPIDER SENSE | A Christmas spider in a large white bugle-beaded web ornament (above, left) was bought from a vendor at Scott Antique Market—I believe it is Czech in origin. The reproduction old-fashioned tinsel garland in a coil is from Bayberry Cove by Bethany Lowe Designs, was marketed for Halloween on one side of the sleeve it was packaged in, and for Christmas on the other side. It is attended to by a cardboard spider silhouette from Martha Stewart Holidays at Target (a test market?). The tiny orange and black Halloween baubles are from Border's. 

©2009 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland