Art by Austin Hillebrecht

ARTIST STATEMENT:

I’ve always thought that Halloween ended too soon. Right when it felt like I was getting into the swing of things, it was over. I wanted it to last longer. Much like Christmas with it’s drawn out and palpable festivities, I wanted Halloween to be something I could sink my fangs into. That’s why on

October 1st of 2010 I started my first series I called 31 Days of Haunts. I challenged myself to make a new piece of Halloween related art work every day for the month of October and release it out on social media for people to enjoy. By the end of the month I would have 31 pieces of new art, and I would have grown as an artist. It was also my solution to making my favorite holiday something more than it already was.

It proved to be a huge undertaking. One I repeated for the next three years. And every year it became harder to finish. By the end of my 2012 edition, I was burnt out. I realized the project had

become more of a chore than a means of celebration and so I put it away. It lay dormant for a long time. Every year people would ask if I was doing it again, and every year I’d tell them no. I was just planning on once again taking it easy, eating lots of candy and watching some scary movies.

But finally in 2016 it returned, very different than it was before. In 2012 I had shaken up the format by making every other day a new chapter in an ongoing story, one I called Thorncrest Manor. This newest 31 Days of Haunts would take that same idea and expand upon it. For the whole month you would get one giant story set in a gritty film-noir city filled with all the denizens of the underworld. I called this edition Easter Sunday. Some pieces from that series are here, as well as some of the best from the previous years and other unrelated pieces I thought you would enjoy. You can follow my art on Instagram @croonstreet.

Thank you and happy haunts!

Austin Hillebrecht