I am starting a new mini project for Halloween, which I’m calling Tricks and Treats. I haven’t had the time or energy to think about making costumes for the kids this year, so I’m cheating a bit and aiming to make some easy-ish masks for them specifically for a polaroid film project.

I have a book called Haunted Air, edited by Ossian Brown from a collection of photographs of children in America from the early decades of the 20th century in Halloween costumes, and they are so creepy it’s unbelievable. The creepiness comes partly from the costumes which are all homespun and weird, and partly from the sadness that I think all old photographs carry with them.

So I thought I’d try and fake it a bit with the polaroid format, and just get the kids to pose. So that will be the final project. In the meantime, I’m trying to make the actual masks, the first of which is a pair of hessian scarecrow masks. They are pretty basic but I have to remember that the masks themselves are not the final artwork.