I was a devil and an angel for Halloween this year. Here are the pictures along with others from Halloween past. Costumes are the best – it is so much fun, so creative. It should be a once a month thing instead of once a year. <3
Halloweens
Tag Archives: Halloween costumes
Disguised
OMG, I love, love, LOVE Halloween! I dressed as a prom queen, a dark angel, a lion tamer, the Mona Lisa and Hermione Granger. It started on October 20th – I chaperoned the school dance. The following Wednesday there was a costume party at the Dinosaur BBQ in downtown Syracuse; Saturday it was a house karaoke party and on Halloween, I did a day and night thing – school then costuming at Notch 8 in Jamesville. Why don’t we do this all year long? Halloween is just the most creative holiday. It is the best! So fun….
Halloween 2016
This year my Halloween choices were varied. I wore the Rose from Titanic gown that I sewed last millennium from a McCall’s pattern to the Halloween dance at school. I paired it with my black Banana Republic suit jacket.
Last Friday night, I went to a dance party and wore this Jill Jill Stuart gown in combination with some wings to be a dark angel. Loved this one since it was a new idea. I bought the wings at Party City the day before.
On Halloween, I did a modified Frida Kahlo sans ‘stache using clothing from my closet – the new Free People top and my BCBG Max Azria leggings.
And on Halloween night, I Trekked out in a store bought Uhura dress. Love Halloween. It is soooo fun!
Halloween is Here
I was always jealous of my elementary friends who took piano lessons. That and ballet. I wish I could play the piano. Maybe someday I will take lessons now that I can pay for them myself…. Back in the ’70s, we used to have one of those little organs with numbers for keys. It was in the dining room. To play Silent Night you hit 5-6-5-3, 5-6-5-3, 9-9-7, 8-8-5, 9-9-8-7-6, 5-6-5-3…
Kathy and I would write songs on that stupid thing. One went like this:
Halloween is here
Halloween is here…
Wish you could come another night
Wish you could come some other night
Wish you could come another night
Yeah, oh, yeah….
Lol, I don’t know why I can remember that when I can’t even remember where I put the postage stamps I bought two weeks ago!
I had a fantastic Halloween this year. It really is my favorite holiday because it is the most creative one. People really rise to the occasion! I wore four different costumes this year. I went to three different parties – the school dance included.
My costumes consisted of props with regular clothes. I bought the angel wings and halo years ago and popped them on and off – the party was the previous weekend and so I was able to go out afterwards to meet friends without the burden of going home to change – easy peasy.
I made the red riding hood cape and the Gryffindor robe. Paired them both with a white top and black skirt.
The fortune teller garb is a peacock-patterned caftan. It’s Rachel Roy. I paired it with an old silk scarf I bought back in my Co-Manager for The Limited days, which makes it an almost thirty-year-old fossil.
I wore almost every necklace in my arsenal and carried my Magic 8-ball. It is really quite amazing how people can believe you are what you pretend to be. Everyone wanted to know about their love lives, which was pretty funny. I wasn’t able to give everyone a positive response. The heart wants what it wants, but the 8-ball says what it says. That’s magic for you. <3
What does it say about me that I picked magical beings as my alter ego(s)? Angel, fairy-tale character, witch and occult practicioner…. I guess I just love magic. Love when reality is magical. Love that you can make magic happen sometimes.
Halloween, for me, is fun – not scary. I don’t really like the scary, although I did see a “horror” movie last week. It was the 1961 cult classic, The Mask in 3-D. It was playing at the Capitol Theater in Rome, NY. And I actually loved it.
So maybe I’ll go scarier next year. I am still planning to do a Carrie thing. I have the perfect old bridesmaid dress from 1978 and a tiara. Just need to get my hands on some fake blood and I am good to go.
You know, why wait until next year? It’s so fun to dress up. People should walk around in costumes more often. They really should.
Faith, Fate & Fashion
This was a crazy busy weekend what with everything that I usually do and the whirlwind of art events I mentioned last time. I found the irony in meeting some Facebook friends for the first time at the Edgewood Gallery opening on Friday night so hilarious. It was like a Saturday Night Live skit or something. “I know all about you,” is what one woman said to me, along with insisting that I was stalking her on social media. “You paint cats,” she said. It was just so funny. Later she spoke about her dream of meeting Faith Ringgold, to which I responded that I had met the artist. Here’s the picture to prove it in case she thought I was totally lying.
Faith Ringgold shared her art journey at Light Works at Syracuse University in 2007. Her visit coincided with an exhibition of her work at the Community Folk Art Gallery here. Faith is an incredible person – so inspirational and positive, and lovely. She autographed her book for me and we chatted for a significant amount of time considering that she’d been signing books for a couple hours and there was a long line of people behind me.
https://www.facebook.com/drfaithringgold
https://www.facebook.com/faithringgold
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Faith-Ringgold-Books/429143970457474
Faith is on Facebook – her daughter posts updates regularly. She’s currently working on an app that is based on quilting, which is geared to the elderly and can help improve memory function. I feel like if I can have just half her energy and attitude I will someday make a difference in this world. But I am always vacillating – that confident vs. insecure yo-yo mindset that grips just about every artist from time to time. Did I make the right choices with my life? Am I even good at what I do – artist, teacher, etc.?
When I was in college, Frank Goodnow, my painting professor, was surprised to find out I was a fashion design major. “You are a painter,” he said. I think about that a lot when I wonder if I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing if one believes in fate.
I was reminiscing about this with Laurel Morton, a former classmate and current assistant professor in the fashion program at Syracuse University. I visited her studio at the Delavan Center on Saturday and we chatted about the past. I haven’t thought about those dreams in years and so it resurrected that whole road not traveled thing. Had I moved to NYC and taken that job at Ralph Lauren, would I have eventually become Marc Jacobs famous?
I don’t know. Maybe. At SU, you took foundations courses in art as a freshman at that time (not sure how it is now) then you re-applied to your major. I had originally planned on going into advertising, but only because I thought I needed to have a reasonable art career to satisfy my worried parents who were spending all of this money to send me there. I was the eleventh person chosen for the competitive advertising program based on my freshman portfolio but at the last minute I chose fashion design, which had no such competition. I thought I could see myself doing that.
I eventually found my way back to painting and art, and teaching. I mean, I can still design clothes. But these days I only do it to create Halloween costumes. My specialty is coming up with something that relates to an artist, art movement or culture for a costume that goes with an art lesson at school.
Frank Goodnow was right- I am a painter. I really cannot imagine my life without mark-making. Designing clothes is just another thing I can do.
http://archives.syr.edu/collections/fac_staff/sua_goodnow_f.htm
The Edgewood Gallery show of work by Amy Bartell, Linda Bigness and Todd Conover will continue until January 2nd, 2015, btw, if you want to see it or buy something.
http://edgewoodartandframe.com/