Carlsbad Art and Culture

I return to the ARTpartment after a long day of colors, shapes and repetition. The door swings open and reveals Edie in a robe dabbing makeup in front of a vertical mirror. “Oh Andy”, she calls out as I waltz into the room. She wraps her warm arms around my neck and squeezes as if I had just returned form a long voyage. I avoid her thick pink lipstick and place a kiss on her powdered cheek. I notice our matching outfits laid out on the bed and we both chuckle with anticipation. Each year, Halloween serves as our final exam, our senior thesis and our culmination of  many months engulfed in the lives of our newest muses. For Halloween 2008, we decided to reflect the creative whirlwind in which we have found ourselves spinning in with an artsy onslaught of fashion and conceptualization through the eyes and lives of Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick.

Like any fashion icon, Edie primps in front of the mirror as I arrange our annual photo shoot. Cans of paint, leftover from a previous project, work well as props and a tattered tripod is erected. Edie enters the room as if she is walking down a long catwalk while fashion icons and New York socialites stare. Her face enhanced by thick strokes of black and pink is offset by a heavy beauty mark. Her platinum blond hair glows under the overhear light and her body is punctuated by a striped shirt and tight black leggings. She points at me and orders up a few head shots. “You’re the boss applesauce” and I shoot away!

The night life of the village calls and we are soon swooped away in route for the local pubs. Super E man and Carlsbad’s finest joins us as my Polaroid camera idles.  The moon stands alone and a thin layer of fog tumbles across the street as we enter a local hangout. Soon after arrival, we our joined by a dude of a devil. Laughter spreads as fast as pint glasses clink and soon the patio is full of a crowd of friends including a werewolf, Batman, Jesus and the St. Pauli Girl.

A motherly witch joins the fun and escorts us to the Speakeasy  gallery in Oceanside. The parking lot rambles with sites from a panda bear to Harry Potter and large boxes invite the creative to doodle the night’s thoughts. Brightly lit walls of the gallery are cluttered with a group show ranging from photography to water color while oil paintings ripple off canvases. The hypnotizing melodies of the band bounce of the surrounding hills and snacks grow stale. Hours easily blow in the brisk wind and as November creeps closer, we jump into a taxi.

Conveniently, a house throbs with excitement only doors from our beds and we enter. A masterpiece of festive decorations greets us as zombies and mummies slouch on the couch. A winding hallway nudges through the kitchen and a back door opens to a sea of faced painted and half naked scenesters. A camera crew catches every move and a wedding proposal climaxes with a kiss as the crowd howls at the moon. We find a sturdy fence and log some quality people watching.

Halloween, situated at the end of each year, is the perfect opportunity to showcase your year long infatuation with one of the many interesting icons of the past. It’s as if the first 10 months of the year is a long class and you are the student in the front row scribbling the rambles of a shaggy haired professor. We dive into books, magazines and documentaries. We recite favorite lines and memorize subtle quirks and mannerisms. We contemplate past beliefs and break down glorified ideas. Like a gown wearing graduate, we celebrate the culmination of another stage in our artistic development through the interest in a muse and the festivities of the year’s Halloween.

What did you do this Halloween? What were your favorite costumes?