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Halloween Folk Art

By Halloween Alliance

During the past two decades folk and fine artists have quietly been whiling away the hours in their workshops creating masterpieces for Halloween fans. As quickly as they produce their wonderful works, they sell them to eagerly waiting hands. Many of these artists have become household names thanks to decorating magazines and television specials. Others have pieces residing in various art and other museums.

My mission in life is to collect as much of this wonderful artwork as I can; and to make the artists names legion.

This Halloween article is really more of a pictorial of some of my favorite artist’s works, with captions. At the end of this pictorial I will supply as much information as possible as to sources for their works.

Styles of folk art range from highly primitive rag dolls to papier mache, to works on canvas, to hand carvings. Some folk artists have become so popular that in order to keep up with demand, they have turned to cottage industries or mass production to turn out their goods.

Others prefer to keep control over their product, sell less and produce an original and unique item every time. Yet others have new items that are originals and older items mass produced and sold in limited editions. Some artists, such as Anthony Costanza, Debbi Thibault and Bethany Lowe no longer sell originals and always sell mass produced or limited edition pieces.

If you are looking for quality Halloween folk art there were recently some must see shows. The first just occurred in Jim Thorpe, PA. This; the Halloween Opera, actually was a total immersion into Halloween with stellar guest speakers and folklorists as well as some of the country’s finest folk artists. Part of the proceeds went to upkeep the historic Mauch Chunck Opera House in which it was held. The second was the Halloween & Vine folk art show, a yearly event held at the Madonna Estate Winery, Oct. 11th. Halloween & Vine is a yearly event and if you are interested in information about next year you can contact Susan Bertolucci via gavitee@aol.com.

Some artists are only available through Ebay sales, while others sell only at shows, but many of these wonderful artists have websites or representatives that you can make contact to get in touch with or to purchase from them. The end of this article features email addresses and/or websites for the artists I have featured. There are so many more quality folk artists out there that I did not have space to represent! Please seek them out! I suggest trying to search ebay under Halloween folk art or under specific categories, such as “veggie people” or “pumpkin man”.

I also suggest using Yahoo and Google (see search box below) looking for Halloween folk art. There are a few great sites out there for “crafters” that I have seen some very cool folks artists on, one url being: http://www.crowsoup.com.

Another good site is http://www.impromptu.net done by Janice Ratski of The Dandelion Patch, url: http://www.dandypatch.com/, of course there is Vaillancourt Folk Art of Sutton, MA at http://www.valfa.com/pdf/friends_09_00.pdf and there is some fun stuff at http://www.pumpkin-seeds.com/POhalloweenpage.htm. Otherwise folks have great fun looking on your own, and have a wonderful, art-filled Halloween!

Resources for artists whose works are seen in this article:

Acorn Cottage Collectibles, David Bruce:
http://www.acorncottagecollectibles.com

beary best friends, Jody Battaglia: jodybattaglia@cs.com

Café Spiff, Bruce Beaman: http://www.webpages.charter.net/brbeaman/

Christine Giambione: email tcaag@cox.net

Cobb Webb, Rebecca Venable: http://www.geocities.com/halloweenfolkart/ email: r.rada@lycos.net

Greg Guedel: http://www.gregguedel.com/

Elisa Poirier: Ebay seller ID: hauntedholidays, Email: TheAutumnWitch@aol.com

LahDeeDah, Lori Mitchell: www.lahdeedah.folkart.com

Pennie K. Griff: Ebay seller ID: penniekg, Email: penniek@adelphia.net

Jack Roads: don’t try to contact Jack - look for him at shows, he can be googled but rarely answers emails and really prefers to be left alone.

Rucus Studio, Scott Smith : http://www.rucusstudio.com

Shiverbones, Matthew Kirscht: http://www.netwt.org/shiverbonesmain/html

Trout Creek, Virginia Bertourne: Email VDBTrout@aol.com

wild*mustard, Celia Bishop: Ebay Seller ID: wild*mustard, Email: QueenB@houston.rr.com



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