Creating Spooky Seasonal Art (with a twist)

Leslie Archibald is leading a spooky seasonal art workshop at Merge Art Studio on Saturday, October 17, starting at 3 PM. The session is built around making your own spooky or cute-spooky art piece using studio materials, and once you've got the visual part down, you'll write a scary micro, a short poem, or even just a single word to print and add to the work. It's a two-part process—making the art first, then pairing it with something written—so you leave with a finished piece that combines both.

Archibald is a Houston writer and visual artist who works in poetry, flash fiction, and nonfiction. She only started pursuing visual art in late 2023, so the two sides of her practice are still relatively new bedfellows. Her flash piece "Sherry Baby" won an award and appeared in the special section of Companion of the Ash in December 2018, and her chapbook Poems for a Broken Marriage is coming soon from Finishing Line Press. The workshop is part of Merge Art Studio, which she co-founded with artist Holly Lyn Walrath. They describe it as their "thought-child," a space run out of Deutser Studios in downtown Houston where the two explore the merging of minds and arts through monthly workshops and "Sip + Create" events.

Because the studio is small, sessions are kept intentionally intimate, with no more than ten people at a time. The studio is wheelchair accessible. The workshop runs on Saturday, October 17, at 3 PM at Merge Art Studio, 2000 Nance St., Studio B-126, Houston, TX 77020, and costs $30.