Wednesday, October 26, 2016

/edition Toronto: Holiday Arts Mail-Order School






Table 10: Holiday Arts Mail-Order School

The Holiday Arts Mail-Order School will be launching The Jack O’Lantern, a Hallowe’en Arts 1937 Yearbook. The yearbooks are free to graduates of the program (those who cannot attend will have their copy and diploma mailed to them) with a limited number of copies available for purchase by non-grads. There will also be a a selection of H.A.M.S. souvenirs: bone china glow-in-the-dark Jack-O'Lantern clocks, H.A.M.S. Ouija boards, pennants, and more.


"In 2008, Ian Phillips and I co-founded H.A.M.S., the Holiday Arts Mail-Order School of Peterborough, Ontario. The school taught a single course: Hallowe'en. Students received lesson books with subjects such as "The Jack-o'-lantern," "The Jack-o'-lantern as Costume," "The Jack-o'-Lantern as Decoration." Students then sent us Hallowe'en projects – masks and trick-or-treat bags and spooky paintings and such. I'm pleased to say that the H.A.M.S. Yearbook for 1937 has been published (at H.A.M.S., it's still 1937; it will always be 1937). It contains all the lessons, as well as work by Shary Boyle, Scott Treleaven, Paul P, Liz Sullivan, Katie Bethune-Leamen, Vincent Fecteau, Micah Lexier, Suzanne Carte, Sandra Rechico, RM Vaughan, Tara Lees Azzopardi, Susan Kernohan, Ken Sparling, Derek Sullivan, Colter Jacobsen, Ereck Jarvis, Julie Voyce, and many, many more. It also documents the H.A.M.S. installation at FLY Gallery, and the haunted house that H.A.M.S. built at Art Toronto five years ago.

Graduates of the school will receive a complimentary yearbook; others are welcome to buy a copy at the upcoming Edition/Artists' Book Fair in Toronto. There will be other things to buy: gags, pennants, limited-edition Ouija boards. There will also be bone china clocks that glow in the dark, created for H.A.M.S. by the great Alexx Boisjoli. Happy Hallowe'en!"
—Derek McCormack




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