Sans Souci Studios At Studio Place Arts

It's beginning to feel (a little bit, anyway) like Christmas, which means it's time for the annual Celebrate Studio Place Arts Member Show! The show will run from November 18 through December 31, with the opening reception on Saturday, November 22, from 4PM to 6PM. Several of my masks will be included.

Studio Place Arts (or SPA, as it's known to its friends) — is a community center for the visual arts that has operated in Central Vermont for more than seven years. Located in a building that was once considered a "blight spot" in downtown Barre and nearly torn down, SPA now houses numerous artists' studios, holds eclectic art exhibitions and offers a wide range of arts and crafts classes to the community. For more information about SPA, please visit www.studioplacearts.com

Hours of operation will be:

November 18 through December 6, Tuesday through Friday 10AM to 5PM; Saturday 12PM to 4PM. (Closed for Thanksgiving, November 27)

December 8 through December 23, Tuesday through Friday 10AM to 5PM; Thursday 10AM to 8PM (late hours);Saturday 10AM to 4PM;Sunday 12PM to 4PM.

December 24, Monday, 10AM to 1PM

December 26 through December 31, Friday, 12PM to 4PM, Saturday 12PM to 4PM, Monday and Tuesday 10AM to 5PM, Wednesday 10AM to 1PM.

Hope to see you there!

Halloween At Sans Souci Studios

We geared up our Halloween celebrations this year by going to "The Enchanted Forest" at Hubbard Park in Montpelier, put on by Montpelier Parks and Recreation. This consists of tours guided by costumed characters of different kinds of performances (storytelling, dancing, etc) staged in the woods. One favorite was "The Trolls", pictured above. I really wish I knew who did these masks! Next year, I hope to participate (or rather, volunteer Brian to participate!) as either a masked guide or storyteller. I'm putting it here so you all can hold me to it!



Isabelle's Wall-E costume. Brian made the gloves, Isabelle and I painted the box, and Isabelle did the lettering, made the green buttons, and colored the mask. After being accustomed to spending twenty plus hours on a single mask, it was very strange to make this Wall-E mask in about two seconds. As in, find an image online, enlarge it to the correct size in Corel-Paint, and print it out. Viola!



I wore the unicorn mask and Brian wore his suit and clerical collar from seminary. (Scary!) Isabelle didn't think it was fair that I had a unicorn mask and Brian didn't, so she made him this one. She explained to me that you wear it by holding it up to one side of your face, so that it doesn't cover your eyes and you can see well. Interesting design!





And here we are, just about go door to door! We went with two of Isabelle's friends, Zella (dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz) and Mollie (dressed as a fairy princess) and their parents. Check out the scary graveyard in the background. This must be one of the only pictures in existence of me wearing one of my own masks.

So overall we had a good Halloween. There was the TV show, Halloween mask sales, featured spots on a couple of Etsy blogs and most importantly, fun going from door to door and getting way, way too much candy!