Greetings!

It is my deep, dark pleasure to announce the annual Online Hallowe'en Artists' Studio Tour! This is my "treat" to you all, a special way to celebrate my favorite season, share some exceptional art by artists I personally admire and raise money for animal charities. With this blog, I hope to keep you up-to-date with proceedings and progress as we approach the yearly "launch" on October 1st!



Friday, December 21, 2012

Solstice and the end of the world

Well, it is the end of the Hallowe'en tour for 2012:  the auction is finally all finished and I can finally close and lock the gates.  Timing is everything and it so happens that Bat World Sanctuary is again in the running for a prize on the Modzilla Firefox Challenge!  I checked with the President, Amanda Lollar, if I could "send in" the auction money by way of the Challenge and she said "YES!" and so you can see a $250 donation on the site!  Thank you again to everyone who participated in the auction! 
  Right now Bat World is in 4th place and the charities in 2nd and 3rd are just a wee bit ahead!  Please consider donating, even $10 can make a BIG difference (and if you type LUCY in the comment field a generous bat supporter will match your donation!).  Click here http://www.crowdrise.com/BatWorldSanctuary2012 and follow the instructions, it's very easy and you can set the "fee" at $0. 

Monday, November 19, 2012

The Grim Statistics...


...are anything but grim!  We did good!  Our tour raised a minimum of $1155 for the bats and our 23 artists had 38 sales!  2017 unique trick or treaters visited the tour and, most importantly, 65% of sales were to new customers! 

So we achieved all our goals: we shared our love for Hallowe'en, a significant amount of people purchased our art and we helped save the bats, all while educating people about White Nose Syndrome!  This is fantastic!  I doubt there are many shows that can boast these figures, with 78% of the artists having at least one sale. 

On the down-side, I'm exhausted and I simply can't keep up.  All of my own projects have been on hold for too long (4 years??) and I'm not going to commit to the time necessary to host the tour again in its current form.  This is how I feel: 
 
Along with a complete report, all the artists have received a list of questions so I can see how they might be willing to help, either by finding new artists to participate or setting up their own studio pages or ??  Who knows?  Maybe someone will have a great idea!  After all, this is one of the most creative, resourceful and imaginative bunch of people I have ever had the good fortunate of meeting, so the sky is the limit!  An eerie moonlit sky full of dancing ghosts and flying witches to be sure! 
 
(This awesome illustration is from Zombie Tales Omnibus: Outbreak published by Boom!, Sept 2011. If you like zombie stories, get a copy, excellent, covers all the bases: some stories are sharp commentaries on humanity (Headshot, Backbiter), some are uniquely touching (The Bakemono..., Bait) others go for a laugh (Zombie Come Home). Overall: bitingly good!)

Friday, November 9, 2012

Post Mortem

 
It's done for another year... our tour has closed and it's been the best year ever!  2071 visitors trick-or-treated with us and we had 38 sales!  Not only that, but our auction brought in a lot of good bids, most of which goes directly to the bats! 
Thank you, everyone!

Monday, November 5, 2012

Two days left!

As you may have noticed, our tour has been extended to November 7th for all you last-minuters and too busy Hallowe'eners.  Only 2 days left to get some gorgeous items, perhaps do some early Christmas shopping? 
Our auction winners are getting ready to receive their items, it was a pretty good turn-out this year and we raised a nice sum for the bats!  Also, our Creaking Door Prize winner was picked out of the witch's cauldron and D. Lexa won the cupcake wraps and picks and the Martha Stewart treat bags.  (The mystery item was a human skeleton.) 
Here's a funny picture that artist Deborah Downey took and that's exactly how I feel!  Exhausted, but happy!  Deborah still has some incredible pieces on her page, check out http://www.halloweenstudiotour.com/artist6.htm
and see items like this one:
 

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Scare Fair and the Twilight Zoo

The Twilight Zoo is on our tour and this weekend was the Scare Fair!  There are lots of photos on the Twilight Zoo's tour page, but here's one from yesterday!
This is our corpse bride in the cemetery that Mom and I created in this little fenced-off area beside where the Twilight Zoo was installed. 

And here is Zoltan the Adequate performing his incredible show on Saturday!  Yes, his tongue is on fire! 

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Come see the new treats!


New items appear whenever an artist has a sale and replaces the old with the new!  There have been 22 sales, so...
 
Here's one of Beth Hutchison's new offerings, find him on the tour and many other new treats!
 
Take a peak, you may fall in love AND a % from each item goes to the bats!

Monday, October 8, 2012

new bat necklace

well, here is the Bat Necklace to replace the one that found a home.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Week #1 statistics


This year our tour is flying high with the bats!!!  There have been 11 sales already with 847 unique trick or treaters!  This is an absolutely excellent week one for us!  And who knows how many people have learned about bats and become supporters?! 
  So if you want to help out, please bid on an auction item http://www.halloweenstudiotour.com/auction.htm and take a look at all the amazing things our artists are offering in their studios!  As most creations are one-of-a-kind, don't take took long to decide!
These are Pam Pontious', check out her studio!

coming to the tour

I am trying to finish another Bat necklace for the tour, since the first one sold