This Halloween, we at The Children's Museum of the Arts celebrated by leading the NYC Village Halloween Parade as the first float! Our parade float was themed "Exquisite Corpse" after the popular Surrealist drawing game, and was created as a hodge-podge collaborative project in the spirit of that game. The other three Artist-Educators in Residence (Tati Nguyen, Jacob Hicks, Frank Traynor) and I led and organized art-making activities at our Halloween Block Party the day before to generate children's artwork to adorn the float. For my part, I led a season fruit- and vegetable-printing station to decorate our sign. Tati photographed children's exquisite corpse drawings and projected them onto the back of the float. Jacob had kids make spooky tree ornaments to decorate our Haunted Halloween tree, and Frank made rhyming tombstones that were attached to the float's border.
Fruit and vegetable prints made with me
Projected exquisite corpse drawing made with Tati
Spooky ornaments on our Halloween tree made with Jacob
Tombstone poem made with Frank
View of our finished float (me and my partner Ed on the float,
my father-in-law on self-designated security duty nearby)
My partner Ed (as Spider-Man) and I
This year, the parade was dedicated to the children of New York City who missed out on Halloween last year. Naturally, CMA was a perfect fit. The parade was led by amazing puppets designed by children and submitted to our organization to be assembled by another team.
The designs for these puppets were submitted by kids to CMA
Once our assembly work was done, I led an Instagram takeover to walk the public through our project and we danced the night away with friends and family on our epic creation! We were so grateful to have this project covered by news stations before the event, and to see ourselves on NY1 the next day.
Me speaking to Pix11 news about our plans
Seth Cameron, the Executive Director of CMA, and my hand-painted signs on NY1
Me painting signs on NY1
Me painting signs on NY1
Our float featured on NY1 (I'm dressed as a witch beside my partner Ed as Spider-Man)
Disclaimer: I am expressing only my personal opinions that have not been reviewed by, are not endorsed by, and do not represent the opinion or viewpoints of the Children's Museum of the Arts.