Tag Archives: Halloween decorations

Paint It White

The artist Niki de Saint Phalle, was a french painter, sculptor, and film maker. Today would have been her 81st birthday. Much of her work is naive in style, and has a playful, whimsical quality. The Tarot Garden in Italy is a perfect example of this, with its large scale sculptures covered in brightly coloured mosaics. So is the Stravinsky Fountain in Paris, filled with water-spraying sculptures made by Niki and her husband Jean Tinguely.

Of course it’s all much too happy looking for Halloween, but as luck would have it, she happened to create a unique looking assemblage called Portail de La Mort providing the perfect inspiration for this unusual, quirky little Halloween project. Trust me to sniff out one of the few colourless pieces she created! Joyeuse Anniversaire Niki.

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Odd Little Creatures

How wonderfully disturbing to greet your guests with these odd little creatures lurking in your entrance. They were inspired by a exhibition I saw, pictured below, by Annette Messager, where she explored the idea of covered things which are half hidden and half revealed. Perfect for Halloween.

Les Piques by Annette Messager. Centre Pompidou, 2009.

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Headshrinking

And so begins the month-long journey towards the most splendid holiday of the year. You’ll find shrunken apple heads perfect for turning your home into a Halloween house of horrors, and a big hit with kids. Although I don’t remember making them as a child, I certainly recall coming across the real thing in National Geographic, which routinely featured stories about indigenous peoples and their curious practice of decapitating enemies and collecting their heads as trophies. I propose we begin the festivities with a little headshrinking of our own. This sort of thing takes time, so lets get started.

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