Rolypoly Bogle

Work is proceeding in the Bindlegrim-atorium (taking a break in the studio from the last few years of lantern work) and instead exploring the wold of vintage-style honeycomb decorations. The first release should be this set of four vintage-style rolypolys.

Scarecrow mockup is about 8"tall and 5" x 5" around. See more on flickr or the Bindlegrim facebook fan page.

P.S. Thanks again to Pumpkinrot for featuring a few of these characters while they were in development. 

Orange-Black-Yellow

Getting back to the imagery for that first set of vintage-style roly-polys... (see Halloween Hibernation) and considering doing these in traditional orange/black/yellow colors...

Halloween Lantern Parade (Magic Number 3)

Following is Week 3 of 4, and the next to the last listings of Bindlegrim's 2012 studio stock of vintage-style lanterns.  If you're looking for good Bindlegrim buys these just might be the 2 weeks to watch -- as I think things usually go for less on the tail end of an auction string...(?) and with some of the last of these being repeats, of final stock, a good deal could yet be had...!

Above: during the week had a bit of fun revisiting 

some previously unpublished photos taken in the heat of summer last year...

Note: See most current #'s of stock at bottom of blog post. Here was stock (counting below featured listings of the week 3).

• #1 The Pumpkin Dream (of 5) - Orange (Sold Out)
• #2 The Cornish Litany (of 9) -  Purple (Sold Out) - Green (Sold Out) - Orange (stock:2)
• #3 The Haint House (of 5) - Orange (Sold Out)
• #4 The Space Witches (of 5) - Orange (stock:1)
• #5 The Pumpkin Patch (of 6) - Orange (Sold Out) - Yellow (Sold Out) - Red (stock:2)
• #6 The Horrid Decor (currentty Sold Out)
• #7 Gruss von Krampus (of 3) - (stock:1)

1: The Cornish Litany (From Ghoulies and Ghosties and Long-leggety Beasties and All Things that go Bump in the Night, Good Lord deliver us!) Lantern (orange) with 12 postcards included, features a host of scary characters in gothic settings terrorizing people. Bindlegrim began work on Cornish Litany imagery in 2011 seen in Meister's collection "A Litany... Cornish and Otherwise": CORNISH LITANY vintage style LANTERN (Orange/Black) & 12 POSTCARD SET Bindlegrim

2: The Pumpkin Patch (in red) was created with a focus on vine and leaf motifs to closely merge with the leaf and pumpkin design of the frame. The scene is midnight, deep in the brambles of the pumpkin patch, crawling with a number of spooky creatures staring back at you. And in the middle of all this one very scared little cottage:  PUMPKIN PATCH (Red Black) vintage style HALLOWEEN lantern + STORYBOOK Bindlegrim

 

 

 

3: The Space Witches: (last one #3/5) - The imagery for this lantern was based on Fifties plastic candy containers of witches and rockets, expanded to see what happens when witches (and their cats) reach outer space - like white mice running loose inside your space helmet - or what if your cat gets stuck on the moon?! It's a cyclonic cavalcade of electrifying horror! (A personal fave - I did a poor job of letting these go last year). Last SPACE WITCHES Vintage-Style Lantern #3/5 WITCH & CAT Sci-Fi Retro Halloween

 

Coming soon...

Final week: 3 lanterns, and 12 grumpy Krampus!

Initial entry: 3 Months Later... it's a Summer Lantern Sale!
Previous entry: Halloween Lantern Parade (week 2)
Next entry: Last Week - Bindlegrim Lantern Sale!

UPDATE JULY 21, 2013: Final stock for a final week. Only 3 lanterns left...!

• #1 The Pumpkin Dream (of 5) - Orange (Sold Out)
• #2 The Cornish Litany (of 9) -  Purple (Sold Out) - Green (Sold Out) - Orange (stock:1)
• #3 The Haint House (of 5) - Orange (Sold Out)
• #4 The Space Witches (of 5) - Orange (Sold Out)
• #5 The Pumpkin Patch (of 6) - Orange (Sold Out) - Yellow (Sold Out) - Red (stock:1)
• #6 The Horrid Decor (currentty Sold Out)
• #7 Gruss von Krampus (of 3) - (stock:1)

Haunted Brambles Halloween Lantern (#5)

The Pumpkin Patch (Bindlegrim Lantern released 6-2012):

Who or what creeps restlessly through the brambles of the pumpkin patch at midnight...? Take a peek through an autumnal sky tinged in orange, red, or yellow.

Bindlegrim returns to the studio - and though the bindle-by-bindle move may not have brought all the usual supplies - it has lent itself to experimentation through discovery of the materials on hand. In this case, a new lantern with an offering of six total created in pairs of orange, yellow, and red.

This newest limited edition was created with silhouettes of vine and leaf motifs merging together with the leaf and Jack O'Lantern design of the black frame. There are 12 separate panes with an overall scene that takes you deep among the brambles of the pumpkin patch, encountering celestial entities, plentiful mice, a bevy of bats, a black widow, a prowling cat, a witch, a skeleton, and of course a few  pumpkins characters such as a jol-headed scrarecrow, and a JOL-headed ghost. And in the middle of all this one very scared little cottage!

As with other editions each lantern is signed, numbered, and packaged with label information. They are currently only available from the artist, and one has been listed this past Sunday on ebay - ending on June 17, 201220:59:01 PDT.

 
For more images of this lantern (in post and pre-production) - see the following flickr gallery:

 

Note about construction: The frame is created with acid-free museum board. The pieces were Made in the USA and hand assembled by the artist. Each work is packaged in a cellophane bag and also labeled with its number in the edition. The images are laser-prints on vellum for durability. A 3 watt flicker bulb is recommended - and it should be noted a white bulb might be best on these to keep the color hue of the paper most accurately. Small holes in the top piece are present for hanging the lantern with soft wire or strong thread if you prefer a battery operated candle. 

Lanterns for Ghoulies and Ghosties

From Ghoulies and Ghosties and Long-leggety Beasties and Things that go Bump in the Night, Good Lord deliver us! -- (The Cornish Litany).

An earlier mentioned limited edition run of vintage-style 2012 Halloween lanterns has finally reached production, with a live listing now: CORNISH LITANY vintage style LANTERN (Choose Color) & 12 POSTCARD SET Bindlegrim (ending 3/18), and with a surprising selection of colors: orange, purple, and green available.

Here are some photos of the lanterns in the studio before and after final packaging:

Why green and purple this time? The Cornish Litany originated from Cornwall, and the verse was printed or burned onto souvenirs with imagery that featured scary characters frightening people in Gothic settings; one early artist featured a palette of green and purple, and inspired the color choices used in this lantern edition. 

For more about the verse, with artist imagery past and present, I recommend the collector and book that inspired me, Debra Meister's - A Litany... Cornish and Otherwise.

 These lanterns, style #2 The Cornish Litany, were produced as a total of 9 lanterns with litany imagery, but divided into only 3 of each color.  The twelve panels  are full of ghosts, ghouls, skeletons, castles, beasts, and bugs, together with the verse of the litany reading left to right. Here is a series of photos of this hanging Halloween lantern showing each facet, in the different colors available.

I really enjoy the purple and green with a small LED light inside of them (because of the bluish tint those lights cast). The orange looks great with an orange battery operated candle or a 3 watt flicker bulb.

Included with this lantern comes a complete 12 postcard set (only 30-45 of each card printed) previously mentioned in the blog entry Cornish Litany and Postcard Set when I was working on the lantern's prototype... and the cards were recently available at the End of Winter International Show for postcard and paper ephemera collectors in New York city.

Playing off the "key hole" design of the lantern, I though it was fun to focus on this shape as a peek-a-boo motif for the imagery, and gave each card a little skull topped skeleton key to go with the verse. Now that these are posted for viewing,  I'm finishing up another postcard soon to be available for Easter... and hope to have that showing up here soon. Until then... stay spooky but enjoy the Spring!

The Grim Poetry of the Pumpkin

With October 31st just around the corner, I've re-styled (in a bright pumpkin-colored orange glow) a few snippets of spooky lines from the illustrated Halloween poem The Pumpkin Dream offering a sampling of the poetic content and tone.

While the overall poem expresses a variety of points of view (from fun-loving to dark), the poem selection here is more from the view of a wary narrator and the warning lines from grandpa... (and one reader told me they appreciated the lesson that grandpa is trying to teach). So, well, whatever interpreation you take from this tale of trick-or-treat, and to whichever point of view you prefer as the lesson, I hope you enjoy this excerpt, and perhaps as I do imagine these lines best read in the deeply rich voice of Vincent Price or Boris Karloff:

For further blog entries on the written content of the book also see blog entry: The Coincidence of Pumpkin Dream Symbolism or visit Halloween Alliance for an interview In the Pumpkin Patch with Mr. Bindlegrim.

Happy Halloween 2011...!!!

Halloween Kisses

While I would like to someday say the most popular image on the flickr account is original, it is actually this groovy little piece of vintage Halloween paper. This is the paper seal for the top of what was likely a plastic bag of candy, (and now has well over 500 views based solely on web traffic searches for terms like "original molasses Halloween kiss").

Based on the company info, (of Allan Candy Company in Aldershot), history would place this around 1943-1961. And here is some interesting information about the Canadian molasses kiss candy (which I had no idea until after I started to research the item): www.taddlecreekmag.com/molasses-the-ultimate-treat

I got this from a stack of ephemera at the Craven Farm holiday show, held in November in Snohomish, Washington (near Seattle) -- from the tables of incredible Halloween product designer Hobgoblin. (Check out this fun fall photoshoot with Hobgoblin , and this ghost created by Hobgoblin).  Personally, I was instantly charmed by the simple imagery, (that special character of the witch face), and the classic silhouette color scheme in orange and black.

In retrospect, this was a definite inspiration!

Nine Designs for Trick or Treat Bags

I added 9 designs from "The Pumpkin Dream" to the shop on zazzle, together with t-shirts:

The Pumpkin Dream - Trick or Treat bags

The Pumpkin Dream - T-shirts

Have a look and customize the material!