Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy All Hallow's Eve!

Hello Lovelies~

I hope you are all doing well out there. If you celebrate Halloween, I hope your costumes are ready, your little ones are bundled tight and your treats are good (because no one likes raisins, folks). Things have certainly been in the Halloween mood here in the Mill. I just listed 3 limited edition, signed and numbered mini photo books from the Scream Limousine series in the shop and boy are they cute. Hardbound in linen with a magnetic closure, these books contain 10 shots from the series including all of the head shots. Give yourself a gift this Halloween and snag one before they're gone!


Over the weekend, we did our annual tradition of baking Halloween cupcakes. With all the sprinkles we found, they came out great! I call these little beauties Spider Bits Cupcakes.


We also went to see a showing of Nosferatu at a local arts center. I'd seen it before, but this showing was accompanied by an original score and there was popcorn and people were dressed up. So, needless to say, it was a lot of fun. I would definitely recommend seeing it to anyone who likes old horror movies. There are some tense moments.

(One of those moments is NOT when Nosferatu carries his own coffin all over town, including on a boat...)

What else? Oh! I have found some wonderful new work I wanted to show you, Creepies. Richard Barnes is a photographer who has been photographing installations and clean-ups at museums of natural history for years; the workers, the animals wrapped in plastic. As someone who loves taxidermy, I am fascinated by his work, it has an otherworldly quality to it as people vacuum out the spaces and place and remove once-living things from their environs. Great work.


I also found some great vintage circus eye-candy courtesy of Flavorwire the other day. These rare shots were taken from The Circus Book: 1870 - 1950, which of course, I am now coveting. The colors and those faces and of course the costumes, are all inspiring. I may have to shoot some things along this line. But where to find the costumes?


Happy Halloween to you all!

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Monday, October 24, 2011

Scream Limousine...

Hello Lovelies!

Well, Halloween is almost upon us and in honor of my favorite holiday, I have just dropped a new series of photographs entitled Scream Limousine for your viewing pleasure. I had the opportunity to photograph a rare, classic Packard Caribbean that came standard with Halloween colors believe it or not! So what did I do? I filled it with monsters, of course. Next week, I will release a limited edition of 4 hard bound, mini photo books to the shop of the Scream Limousine series. They're going to go very fast, so let me know if you're interested. First come, first serve. Take a look! (The rest, plus candids are here.)


More exciting news, I recently had my work featured on Who Killed Bambi? an art site out of the UK that I've admire for some time. A lot of great artists and photographers are on there, so I was very flattered to be featured.


Because Halloween is my favorite holiday, I like to get a present for myself every year; something that's unique and creepy or even cute that I can use to decorate or enjoy the holiday in the future. Well, this year's purchase was a handmade shot glass from Corneyware on Etsy. His work is amazing and my little skeleton glass is quirky and one-of-a kind. The back has a beautiful bird painted on it. His line work is amazing. I can't wait to get it! Take a look:


And speaking of creepy cute, I just happened across the beautiful, irreverent work of Frieke Janssen. More specifically, her Smoking Kids series. This series has caused quite a stir as you can imagine, but of course, the kids weren't actually smoking. My favorite part of this series is how she makes the children look like Mark Ryden paintings; bright, soft, and perfect. I love her work.


Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Monday, October 17, 2011

Space Gasser

Hello Lovelies~

I hope all is well out there with you. I have been busy as usual over here. To start, I just mailed off a framed Green Canoe print to a local Make-A-Wish auction to raise money for very ill children to get the wish of their dreams. I love kids, and I think it's a great cause. I hope it helps them out a little.


I have some exciting news! I was asked to become a contributing writer about art, photography, and trendy things of all types over at Lost in E Minor, a site that's featured my work in and past. The site is just full of great eye candy and things to waste your time, so stop on over and as my posts go up, I'll keep you Kiddies in the loop!


And, I am really excited about a piece of artwork I purchased last week that I want to share. This is my first major piece and I'm so happy that I found it. It's entitled Space Gasser and it's an illustration by Derek Yaniger, an artist whose work I've admired for a long time. Great colors, great retro lines. It's perfect. Take a look and let me know what you think:


Oh! And over the weekend, I dragged my Sweetie and some friends to a local haunted attraction called Destination Haunt. What a hoot! We had a great time out in the middle of nowhere, walking through swamps and getting scared to death. I love doing that sort of stuff, and this is the first time we'd been to this particular attraction. If you're in Maine, check it out.

We were kind of like this, only MORE scared...

Let's wrap up with a great ad I found recently. I really can't get enough of this one. It's obviously a Halloween makeup ad for lipstick, but the characters and the women and the colors are just perfect. Does anyone out there have other great vintage Halloween ads to share? Post them here.


Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The Running of the Boars...

Hello Lovelies~

I hope you're all doing well out there! I have so much to share. First off, I just found out my Mary & Owen Nette piece was selected to be in the Revenge of Freaky Fright Nights! Show down at Space 242 in Boston. The whole show has a Halloween/horror theme with all different mediums represented! The gallery is right down by Fenway Park, so it should be pretty neat. I'm flattered to be included!


This past weekend, my Sweetie and I attended a wedding way up in the mountains of Maine at a ski lodge. One our way back (the weather was perfectly Indian Summer; 80 and sunny), I took some shots of the foliage and a covered bridge nearby. Here are some of those pics. What a perfect weekend.


We also stopped at a roadside junk shop and found two new additions to our taxidermy collection. Meet Barleycorn and Boris (the boar and the black squirrel respectively). Barleycorn now has a place of honor above our living room mantle and we have yet to hang Boris, but we will. Some may object to taxidermy (and I would never stuff an animal or hunt one myself), but it makes me more sad to see them gathering dust in some junk shop in the dark. For eccentrics like me, they become part of the family and these two are keeping Bernard company now. (Bernard, as you know, is our skeleton model.)


Are you Kids familiar with Mondo Posters? They release limited edition art posters for movies, bands, pretty much anything pop culture you can imagine, but the artwork is top knotch. Recently, they released a group of 80's horror posters like The Beyond, The Innkeepers, House by the Cemetery and The Gate and I would like one of each, please. (The artwork makes these slashers look classy... and I like that.)


And I'd like to wrap up with one of the most amazing photos I've seen in a long time. Check out this shot of Liberace... all decked out for the 4th of July. The sequins? The short shorts? The baton? This picture is perfection. The world will never have another like him.


Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Monday, October 3, 2011

Venomous Vixens

Hello Lovelies~

I hope you are all doing well out there. Things are busy, busy as usual over here. To start, I recently did a fun little conceptual shoot entitled Dr. Victoria Frankenstein that explored the idea that Dr. Frankenstein had a daughter as mad as he was who continued his work... and married a skeleton. Ha! Some below and the rest of the series is on Flickr.


Well, my huge series has been released today: Venomous Vixens. People really seem to like it so far, which is great. Inspired by B-movies, 1960's pulp and Barbarella, the series explores a space mission gone terribly awry with disastrous (but beautiful) results. A couple shots are below, the rest (and some candids) can be found on Flickr or Facebook. Someone has already won the Facebook contest for a free prize, but prints and calendars can be found here. Tell me what you think!


And last piece of business, I was asked to donate one of my Hortensia the Bearded Lady prints to The Whiskerinas 1st Annual Ladies Fake Beard & Moustache Competition! This group of women competes (with fake beards) alongside the National Beard Championship men to raise money for charity. This particular print will be raffled to benefit breast cancer research. What a great cause. More about their event here. Thanks for asking, Ladies!


Ooo! Did you hear they're releasing a new version of The Thing?! As you may know, I love horror and that movie (the original from 1982) scared the bejeesus out of me. The arctic, complete isolation, aliens. And the alien is no joke you guys... Like:

No.

NO.

Hell NO.

Okay, maybe.

The point is, I will probably see the remake... but I'll also probably have to wear Depends. Have you ever seen this movie? And if so, did you like it?

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...