I woke up this rainy Halloween morning and realized I couldn’t let today go by without wishing you all a Happy Halloween…

I’ve been struggling with whether or not I’d come back and announce that I was ending the comic or whether I was back or what.  The last few months have been a combo of a few weeks of wrist pain followed by just spending all my spare time working in clay, experimenting with ceramic clays, functional art, finishing techniques, etc.  It’s been a journey and an obsession and all of my recent art shows have included new clay works.  I sort of booked myself into a lot of shows and that forced me to work like a maniac and learn a lot through both success and failure.  Anyway, I won’t bore you with details, just trust me when I say I’ve been working my butt off and am incredibly happy.  During this time I just haven’t been driven to squeeze a comic in to my crazy week.  I don’t want to make one just because I feel like I have to because I’m certain the comic would suffer.  So, when my heart isn’t in it and I can’t spare 5 hours, I just think, ‘ maybe next week’ and well that just keeps being the case.  Maybe it’s run it’s course.  Maybe I should put out a book.  Maybe I just needed a break.  I really don’t know.  All I know is this morning I woke up and had a comic for you guys and the desire to make it so I did.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and got a chance to dress up and do scary stuff or are going to do something fun tonight. I went to an live radio theater event and dressed as a dead flapper, checked out some great local haunted houses (Hellview Cemetery and Radley Haunted House – both in St. Pete) and earlier in the month was a vendor at Spooky Empire’s Ultimate Horror Weekend.   I skipped all the big parties and worked instead, but it’s still been a festive month.   Jim and I have been watching scary movies before bed all month long as a tribute to the season.  Surprisingly, this hasn’t led to much in the way of nightmares.  I’ll have to try a little harder.

Speaking of nightmares, how about some artwork that is not only truly scary and haunting but is absolutely beautiful and moving.  Anton Semenov is a Russian artist whose work I’m sure you will love.  I can’t think of a better artist to share with you this Halloween.  His Deviant art gallery (where he goes by Gloom82) is here.  As a teaser, here are a couple of samples of what you’ll find there.

If you like a little pop culture humor with your monsters, check out Drew Daywalt’s latest short film Kart Driver.  Super Mario Bros fans will especially love this one.

Here’s a couple of things I’ve been working on lately…keep your eye on CalanRee.com for more on my art work, including the upcoming art doll figure I’m doing for the Bitchin show at BLue Lucy gallery on Nov 12th.  This piece might just be one of my best.  I can’t wait to show you…but first I need to finish it!

Monster Platter with High Fire Wire Staples and Zombie Monster Shot Glasses – some of the pieces from my monster scar series of functional ceramics.

Here’s a little pot belly skeleton figure – an experiment with a mid fire clay and liquid underglazes -

A bottle using a carving technique called Sgraffito – I’m doing a lot of pieces using this technique lately.  It’s a way my illustrations can marry with clay into functional works -

I’m also working on a series of Skull Bud Vases.  These are some of my favorites of the first batch.  I just picked up another batch from the kiln this week and have a couple of more awaiting bisque fire.  I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing these for a while, as I’m pretty fond of them.

I didn’t expect to make functional art when I returned to ceramics…I really wanted to continue with my art dolls/figures…and I will, but with experimenting comes failures, pieces that come out awful that  you have to trash and well it’s a bit easier to lose a smaller bud vase than a figure that took you a week.  That’s part of it and the other part is well, because I can!  I am making little dishes and vessels and such because it is very exciting to me to be able to create art work that one can incorporate into their daily life…to be able to do more than just look at it is a new experience for me and I can’t seem to stop making functional work.  Maybe it’s a phase and soon I’ll be dedicated to only figurative but I think both are more likely.  I don’t know much of anything lately, except I’m following my heart and life is pretty damn good.

Happy Halloween!

<3 calan