Halloween in Australia

In celebration of the fact that Halloween is almost upon us, and also because I LOVE Halloween, I thought I'd share with you all a little history on the origins of the celebration, courtesy of the History Channel,  and some artwork I've seen that is just awesome (Halloween inspired of course!).

Perhaps surprisingly to some, Halloween is not exclusively an American 'thing' or tradition. It actually has it's roots in Celtic origins. The ancient Celtic festival of Samhain involved people wearing costumes and lighting bonfires to ward off roaming ghosts. Living 2000 years ago, the Celts celebrated their new year on November 1, because this day was considered the end of the summer period and the start of the cold dark winter period that was associated with human death. They believed that the night before the New Year was when the boundaries between living and dead were blurred and the ghosts of the departed were able to roam the earth, damaging crops and causing problems. During their night of  celebration, the Druids wore animal skins as costumes, attempted to tell each other's fortunes, and made animal and crop sacrifices to the gods in their huge bonfires.

By the 9th Century Christianity had spread to the Celtic lands, and the church decreed November 2nd to be All Souls Day, which was a day to honour the dead. The day was celebrated in much the same fashion as the Celtic Samhain - dressing up in costumes like saints, angles and devils, with parades and bonfires. The day was called All-hallows, or All-hallowmas, and the night before began to be known as All-Hallows eve, eventually becoming Halloween.

Halloween did not become a tradition within America until the second half of the 19th Century when mainly Irish immigrants helped to make the celebration popular. Copying from the English and Irish, Americans began to dress up in costume and go house to house asking for food or money, in what would eventually become trick or treating. Over time, Halloween became more about community get togethers than about superstition and ghosts. The idea of giving local children candy came about in a combined effort of community involvement and to prevent tricks being played on themselves.

Many superstitions and beliefs have formed the celebration which is now called Halloween, and while some of them may now be a little commercial, I find Halloween to be far less so than Christmas. Halloween has become about dressing up, having fun, scaring each other and engaging with your local community by trick or treating. The kids love it, and it's really harmless fun. And all you have to do to prevent having a trick played on you is give out some lollies! I can't see the harm in that!!

Image courtesy of http://www.guildwars.com/events/contests/halloween2011/

http://radojavor.deviantart.com/art/Scarecrow-41286004

http://radojavor.deviantart.com/art/Scarecrow-41286004

http://chatterboxbydesign.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/halloween-part-2-decorations/

http://sharddot.blogspot.com.au/2010_10_03_archive.html

Oh! And did I mention how cool the decorating aspect is??? I just love the pumpkins and the scary props and I only wish that it was that time of year over here, instead of it being spring!

How to be an artist in the technology age

So I am sitting here procrastinating about doing some very much needs to be done homework, and it got me to thinking about how easy it is for me to find something else that just 'needs to be done'. So instead of researching artists and doing my journal work, I am on here writing about the way technology can take over and become a business in itself.

I have a blog account (obviously!), as well as a personal facebook page which takes up WAY too much time, and an art/business facebook page. I have a Pinterest page, which is proving to be a very successful time waster indeed, but it's just oh so tempting to browse things on there..... I have a website that I try to keep updated, I have also got an online store, an  Instagram account, a Red Bubble store (that I almost never get on to anymore!) and now I have joined the Art Colony! A virtual studio for artists to congregate and give and get feedback on their work.

So how does an artist successfully manage all these technological areas AND still find time to actually produce decent artwork? I want to keep all of these things updated and network online to improve my business, but I also want to have time to not only paint and draw, but just keep up with everything else that needs doing in my everyday life...not to mention working and going to school as well!

I am going to be finished school in a couple of months, and after Christmas and New Year I'll be starting up my art lessons for children again. So I've been online searching for ideas and it's really very very useful. I've found SO MANY ideas that I can adapt into my own version and that I know will work really well for kids of all ages and will produce some awesome kids artwork. But as I browse, I often see images that inspire me to want to paint and draw and experiment! My problem is time. And it's sort of a catch 22 situation. If I wasn't browsing online forums and websites, I wouldn't get all these bursts of creativity that are overcrowding my brain at the moment. But I'd have way more time to focus on my work. But if I focus so much more on my work, I feel like I'm disadvantaging myself in this technological age. In essence, I feel like I'll be missing out on certain areas in which to not only market myself and my work, but also to get new ideas for both artwork and lessons.

So what do people do in this day and age? Do they hire people to keep up with their online self, or do they just ignore it and stay old school so to speak? Or do they keep trying to keep up with everything and leave the washing and housework to someone else? Actually.....I like that last idea....think I'll go with that one for now! :)