Welcome to Season 7 of the Halloween Art and Travel Podcast! I’m your host, Kristen Stafford, and I’m thrilled to kick off another season of celebrating the artists and collectors who bring Halloween magic to life. This year, I’m launching the season a little later than usual, but for a good reason. In this trailer, I’m sharing the behind-the-scenes story of a new project I’ve been working on with my friend Jorene Lomenzo of Shivers of Delight. It all started with a simple text message... and to...
Jul 24, 2025•4 min
Grab your broom and journey to the enchanting world of Kitchen Witches to uncover their cultural significance. Join the movement to revive their popularity. This episode features insights from various creators and collectors, shedding light on their enduring fascination. Thank you to all of our content contributors: Anna Allen, (Aw Shucks Annie Dolls): https://www.facebook.com/awshucksanniedolls and https://www.instagram.com/awshucksanniedolls Jennie Hepler-Takens (My Dearest Witch): http://www....
Oct 31, 2024•30 min•Season 6Ep. 67
Meet Marion Held, the creator and curator of the Devil-ish Little Things Museum in Vancouver, WA. Marion shares her passion for collecting whimsical devil, Krampus, and satyr objects. Marion’s collection is brightly colored, mostly from Europe, and is based on fairytales and folklore. Her collection began 26 years ago when she fell in love with the Devil and Cards ceramics by Royal Bayreuth. Marion is dedicated to inspiring others to appreciate and collect art. Her collection exudes a playful Eu...
Oct 30, 2024•50 min•Season 6Ep. 66
Meet Anna Allen, an artist who blends traditional cornhusk craft with her Appalachian heritage. Anna creates cornhusk dolls under the name Aw Shucks Annie Dolls. Her dolls feature vibrant colors with a special focus on witches and the magic of Halloween. She also enjoys creating dolls showing traditional Appalachian clothing and activities. Growing up in Ohio, Anna was surrounded by her creative and self-reliant family. Her childhood includes memories of her grandparents making their own lye soa...
Oct 23, 2024•38 min•Season 6Ep. 65
Meet Kymmburleigh Clark, upholstery teacher, designer, and restorer of furniture. When her dogs destroyed two of her chairs, she taught herself how to restore them. This started her on the path to learning the craft of upholstery. As a co-owner of a furniture fabrication shop, Kymm learned about the dire state of the upholstery field. Demand far exceeds the number of people with the skill. After their successful business closed due to a lack of skilled labor, Kymm made it her mission to teach as...
Sep 30, 2024•51 min•Season 6Ep. 64
Meet Iva Wilcox of Iva’s Creations, a talented artist who creates vintage style folk art. Iva is well known for her spun cotton. When the muse strikes, she also works in mixed media and watercolors. Her pursuits in music, costuming, cooking, and dance also stand testament to her creative drive. Iva instantly fell in love when she saw spun cotton ornaments for the first time. They invoke the charm of a bygone era and provide limitless opportunities to create many kinds of shapes. Working with cot...
Sep 23, 2024•42 min•Season 6Ep. 63
Meet doll maker Kaf Grimm of Grimitives. Every doll born in her studio has a stitched heart. That’s Kaf’s way of putting a piece of herself into every creation. “Grimitives are my grim children, and each and every one is different. So, it's hard picking my favorite, and it's also hard letting them go when I'm finished with them,” said Kaf. Kaf is passionate about preserving history, which is evident in her choice to collect and use vintage materials. Her studio, built on top of a historic founda...
Sep 13, 2024•41 min•Season 6Ep. 62
Meet Deven Blackwell, the creative force behind House of Blackwell, a gathering of her limitless artistic endeavors. Some of her current offerings are spooky decor, tutorials, and patterns. Her diverse set of experience includes graphic design, art, writing, hair styling, and sewing. Deven is especially known for her spooky cornhusk creations. She loves to create phobia-inducing creatures such as bats and spiders. While she learned cornhusk crafting as a child in Texas, her talent remained dorma...
Aug 30, 2024•35 min•Season 6Ep. 61
Meet artist Stephanie Tiongco of Stevi T Fiber Art. Stevi’s needle felted animals look so real, you’ll swear they are breathing. In this episode, you’ll hear how Stevi creates anthropomorphic dolls and her unique approach to incorporating antiques into her artwork. She discusses her involvement with doll organizations, giving valuable insight into the world of doll making and collecting. Stevi’s artistic journey has taken her from making dolls for her daughter to showcasing her work on national ...
Jul 30, 2024•42 min•Season 6Ep. 60
Meet paper mâché artist, Jorge de Rojas of HohoHalloween. Halloween has captivated Jorge since childhood and was a key influence in helping him adapt to his new country. His career journey has taken him from make-up and costuming, through a detour in nursing, and then back to art due to a fateful life event. The common thread in Jorge’s diverse career is the desire to make people smile. His world includes everything from devilish ornaments to mischievous goblins. His inspirations include 1930s c...
Jul 23, 2024•28 min•Season 6Ep. 59
Jana Seven's journey into doll-making is a captivating tale of passion and creative drive. From her early childhood days spent doodling on office paper to her illustrious career as a children's book illustrator, Jana's art has always been a part of her life. The transition from illustration to crafting one-of-a-kind Rag and Bone Dolls stemmed from a burning desire to create something tangible and to exercise bringing the sweet beings that live inside her head to life. Jana uses the rawest materi...
Jun 30, 2024•42 min•Season 6Ep. 58
Stacey Bear, a talented artist and antiques dealer, traces her creative roots back to making dollhouse miniatures as a child. She still has a fondness for creating treasures in a small scale. Her spun cotton ornaments and dolls are highly sought out by collectors. Her work is a fusion of historical techniques and her own innovations. Stacey started collecting cotton ornaments and wanted to learn how to make them herself. There was no internet or instructional book at the time so she experimented...
Jun 24, 2024•45 min•Season 6Ep. 57
This is Kristen Stafford, your host of the Halloween Art and Travel Podcast. This is your source for the stories behind the Halloween artists and collectors who capture your imagination. I’m excited to share my 2024 season with you – the 6th season of this podcast. Over the summer, I’ll be releasing new episodes on the 23rd and 30th of the month, now through October. Once we hit high spooky season, September and October, there will be even more Halloween art fun for your ears. In addition to epi...
Jun 24, 2024•2 min
Austin Phillips, a skilled figure maker and expert in ventriloquist dummies, has turned his lifelong passion into a full-time career. His fascination with these mechanical dolls began at the age of five when he received a ventriloquist dummy from Santa. From that moment on, Austin was captivated by the artistry and entertainment value behind these unique creations. As he grew older, he honed his skills in figure making by experimenting with different materials and his dad’s power tools. Austin's...
Oct 30, 2023•55 min•Season 5Ep. 56
Meet Tracy Mahaffey, a talented stone carver and memorial artist who creates lasting stories in stone using only her hands and simple tools. Out of her studio comes gravestones, memorials, architectural work, and sculptures. Tracy majored in sculpture in university. At that time, she thought all memorial work was done by computers and sandblasting. When she found people making memorials by hand, she knew she had found her tribe. The low-tech nature of the job appeals to Tracy. All of her work st...
Oct 13, 2023•54 min•Season 5Ep. 55
North Carolina glass artist, Sarah Band, is inspired by science, anatomy, and creepy stuff. As a sculpture major at San Francisco State, her ambition to create a large kaleidoscope led her to her first encounter with glass. Sarah was hooked as soon as she saw someone blow out molten material. In a craft medium like glass, the blower needs a strong understanding of chemistry. Sarah explains the process of using different metal oxides to create various glass colors. She also highlights the interse...
Sep 30, 2023•24 min•Season 5Ep. 54
LeeAnn Kress, is the color loving artist behind Charmed Confections. Her candy shop of sculpted art invokes Willy Wonka, childhood memories, and Halloween magic. She aspires to evoke happiness and nostalgia in her collectors. Details unknown to collectors hold special significance to LeeAnn, like the number 13 representing her father's birthday. Art is not just about creating visually appealing pieces; it's about sharing a part of herself with the world. Every piece is infused with inspiration f...
Sep 13, 2023•22 min•Season 5Ep. 53
Stephanie Hodge’s journey into running an online shopping experience, Holiday Pizzazz, began with the simple desire to help collectors find their dream pieces. She experienced the supply and demand dilemma in collecting and decided to help fill the gap. She is motivated by driving availability of products for collectors and showing artists that their skills and talents are appreciated. Holiday Pizzazz carries artist reproduction pieces for all the popular holidays in the US, including a full sel...
Aug 30, 2023•30 min•Season 5Ep. 52
Joanna Barnum’s world is one where her brush creates the macabre, bringing to life Halloween iconography, emotions, and fantasy using hauntingly beautiful watercolors. Joanna was initially skeptical of watercolor, but fell in love with its chaotic and expressive qualities during art school. She was also influenced by Stephen Gammel’s illustrations in “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.” Watercolor’s unpredictable nature has taught Joanna how to balance control and chaos. She likens watercolor to...
Aug 13, 2023•35 min•Season 5Ep. 51
Shrink down and enter into the fantasy world of Michael Robbin’s Halloween themed miniatures. From humble beginnings collecting Polly Pockets, hear how a retiring artist’s gift becomes the catalyst for his artistic journey. Michael’s passion will inspire and delight you. Michael envisions his miniatures living in a friendly, storybook-like world where pumpkins, witches, and other magical creatures reside in harmony. He discusses the importance of facial expressions and storytelling in his work. ...
Jul 30, 2023•37 min•Season 5Ep. 50
Step into the magical world of David Everett, where spooky meets mischievousness. In a strange twist, a man who was scared of skeletons as a boy, now creates them with his sculpting tools. The unique name for his business, Chicken Lips, came from a family brainstorming session. David proclaims his spirit animal is a chicken and he loved the humorous angle of incorporating the expression, “as useful as lips on a chicken.” In his studio, you’ll find David creating Halloween and spooky twists on ot...
Jul 13, 2023•34 min•Season 5Ep. 49
Enter the fantasy world of Paul Haigh, a chemist turned potter, who creates weird stuff for weird people. His work is a blend of his fascination with horror, mythology, science fiction, and games like Dungeons and Dragons. Ultimately, Paul sees his work as an escape from the real world. Paul is known for his face jugs, which are wheel-turned jugs with faces stuck on them. Traditionally, the faces are abstract or even cartoonish, but Paul enjoys making his look realistic. Originally face jugs wer...
Jun 30, 2023•37 min•Season 5Ep. 48
This is Kristen Stafford, your host of the Halloween Art and Travel Podcast. This is where you get the stories behind some of the best Halloween art being created today. I’m excited to share my 2023 season with you – the 5th season of this podcast. This season, I’ll be releasing new episodes on the 13th and 30th of each month, from now through October. I’ll also drop additional episodes in-between those two dates, but always on dates that contain the number 3. Subscribe and follow in your favori...
Jun 14, 2023•2 min
Artist Danielle James (DJ for short), is conjuring up neon lights in her Durham, NC shop. Under the name Hex Neon, she creates custom work, restorations, and teaches classes. Her shop name and logo were inspired by the hex signs on Pennsylvania Dutch barns in Lancaster, PA. DJ studied metalsmithing and jewelry making in art school. As a student, she got the desire to make small wearable neon pieces. This desire took her to a neon company in Atlanta, where she discovered neon is a VIP pass to rea...
Oct 31, 2022•1 hr•Season 4Ep. 47
Alycia Matthews creates joyful papier mache Halloween sculptures. Her process starts with a terra cotta base which gives her characters a distinctive warm vintage glow. She proudly declares orange her favorite color. She loves to wear orange clothes and Halloween socks all year. Alycia turns to old black and white movies for artistic inspiration. She can lose herself in studying all the wonderful props. She’ll watch with a sketch pad in hand to capture interesting facial expressions. One of her ...
Oct 28, 2022•27 min•Season 4Ep. 46
Jeff Osgood’s bold line of pottery features historic gravestone art that thrills collectors of Halloween, cemetery, and macabre art. His distinctive work is black and white, and filled with gravestones, skulls, crypts, willow trees, and epitaphs. His business name, Clay of the Dead, is a pun of the George A. Romano zombie movies. How did an Ohioan fall in love with New England gravestones? During middle school, Jeff took a field trip to Boston which included historic cemetery tours. Jeff instant...
Oct 20, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 4Ep. 45
Interweaving her skills in photography, sculpture, writing, design, and history, Alyssa Thorne is creating still life compositions that will transport you to other worlds. Her photographs are heavy with symbolism, rich colors, duality, and flowers. Historical still lives have a language of symbolism that is easily decoded with a bit of knowledge. Alyssa is passionate about teaching this language and shares a little “Still Life Appreciation 101” in this episode. Still lives can document anything ...
Sep 30, 2022•52 min•Season 4Ep. 44
For over a quarter century, Halloween art fans have flocked to Petaluma, CA to collect exquisite pieces from their favorite artists. The original show, Halloween and Vine, has evolved into All Hallow’s Art Fest. In this episode, you’ll meet the show producer, Stephanie Sherratt. Stephanie is driven by nostalgia. She loves helping adults relive the excitement of their trick-or-treating days. Stephanie has witnessed the importance of marketing on social media go from being a novelty to a necessity...
Sep 22, 2022•23 min•Season 4Ep. 43
Sheila Bentley is creating one-of-a-kind hags, witches, zombies...everything creepy and Halloween. While Sheila will create young hags, her heart really is for more experienced ones. Her motto is the more wrinkles the better. She doesn’t plan or sketch; she works intuitively and never knows who is going to emerge from the clay. The weirdest character she ever made was a rat witch with a human face. One of her favorite things is creating the small companions for her larger pieces. Sheila is known...
Sep 13, 2022•37 min•Season 4Ep. 42
Jeannette Leary thinks of her art dolls as “little art treats for grownups who don’t ever want to grow up.” When she started Sugar Bright Studio she pictured a colorful candy store, but instead of candy, one filled with bowls of pocket-sized art dolls. After growing up in Ohio, Jeannette and her twin sister moved to Florida and commenced working at Disney. Her role as a backstage tour guide helped her grow her confidence and swept her into the Disney magic. Another favorite job was painting eyes...
Aug 31, 2022•48 min•Season 4Ep. 41
