We gathered as outsiders, loners, and weirdos. We, the lovers of the dark arts gathered to celebrate all that is spooky, horror filled, mysterious, and macabre together. The rain couldn’t stop us as we attended Providence’s own Dark Arts Festival founded by Joshua Dahlin. Josh, also founder of the company Horror Depot, began this festival as a way to connect people and normalize the genre of horror. Founded in 2022, this was the third Dark Art’s Festival hosted at RISD. The event was also supported by Scar’s Magazine and Scary Acres. Thousands of people attended from a large array of backgrounds including different religions, political views, and nationalities, for their love of horror and the dark arts. The large selection of vendors, performers, and artists huddled under tents to avoid the downpour, showing their vast creativities and passions; the deluge didn’t stop anyone from sharing their passions.
Josh began his horror career by selling online through his company Horror Depot. When the website ultimately crashed, he became involved with independent horror film screenings, and conventions. Currently, Josh still maintains Horror Depot through the annual Dark Arts Festival and Dark Reads. Dark Reads has been a successful venture where authors gather to read and share literature pertaining to the Macabre. With the Dark Arts Festival, Josh wanted a festival where the universal love of Dark Arts could bring an extremely diverse group of people together for a day to enjoy art. “It’s nice to see that everyone can hang out, look at art, be entertained, and forget about everything for the day.” Josh has always been a lover of horror, beginning when he was achild. He rented every horror movie from the local video store, believing that horror spans many different genres and cultures. “Horror isn’t just in film; it’s in literature; it’s in art; it’s in performance; it’s in dance; it’s in just about everything… Dark and Macabre is universal…. It touches the genres of fantasy, sci-fi, punk, heavy metal… Everything ties back to being scary and different.” In starting the festival Josh has created an inclusive anti-culture through art, literature, dance, and movies.
Along with art classes, the artists and performers varied widely. This included painters, belly dancers, independent films, spirit mediums, bone art, creepy dolls, yarn tassel figurines, puppets, oddities, and much much more. Jenn Lopez, creator of Mystika401, is the creator of creepy dolls. The level of detail in these beautiful dolls is striking. Using a mixture of vinyl, resin, and paint, she creates hand-made, hauntingly beautiful faces, some with eyes that follow you everywhere. Jenn started her artistic venture to “open more minds, and give more perspective on the dark side… If it makes people happy, then it’s not the dark side.” As part of her inclusivity she has made some dolls which she uses to represent various mental disorders. “I didn’t want to go too much into mental disorders, but someone had to do something about it… Everyone can relate sometimes, because maybe you don’t know about it, but you heard about it, so [now] you can be like, ‘hat’s how someone feels.’”
Tilly’s Tassles, owned by Patti Daly, creates yarn tassel figurines, which began as a project during Covid. Her Sanderson Sisters’ tassels became so popular that they were featured on the set of Hocus Pocus 2.
The Bone Gardner, owned by Aubry Weber, creates beautiful drawings and sculptures of bones combined with nature. She and her husband work as a team when vending. Her journey began shortly after a traumatic head injury, and while she was healing, she began drawing. Her husband admires her for taking the leap into art.
The Hosts of Three Geeky Dad’s Podcast, Brien, Derek, and Marc, tell stories about horror, sci-fi, and comics, entertaining the masses with their funny antics and extreme passion for the genre. The stories behind the artists are inspirational, and truly show that art goes beyond what is conventional, as even in horror, the positivity and passion persist.
The festival, in its inclusivity, additionally provided an all-abilities art class. Josh mentions, “I have a cousin with disabilities. He can barely walk and has braces. I wanted a place where someone like that can be accepted and hang out, and he likes to do art.” Along with Downtown Designs and Westbay Open Studios in collaboration, the festival provided an opportunity for people with various disabilities to gather and create in a safe space. The classes included collage making, painted sugar skulls, eyeball art – or artists were welcome to create anything on their own. “Not everyone can hold a paintbrush, so they made it accessible with other things, [for example] a paintbrush that can go on your head so you can paint with your head.”
Among the vendors was an unusual booth, which is saying something for a horror festival. Candy’s Curiosities booth contained serial killer memorabilia, the feet of several animals, vintage halloween decorations, and the occasional taxidermy frog. Candy’s Curiosities, owned by Leslie Letourneau, began as a booth at festivals, rented and antique store shelves, to a small store in West Warwick. Soon after opening, the store was so popular that Candy’s needed to relocate to a new location. Leslie has always had an interest in curiosities. She began first with a love of bones, medical supplies, funeral artifacts, but now focuses primarily on vintage halloween items. Hundreds came to the grand opening of Candy’s new location on Main Street in West Warwick. The store showcases antique medical equipment, vintage halloween decor, many artifacts from the Lizzie Borden House, various animals in a mysterious liquid, books, serial killer memorabilia, taxidermy, and more. Some of the artifacts which are claimed to be haunted, are rented out to museums – like a haunted embalming table. In the main room of Candy’s, a large brown bear named Uncle Tony welcomes all guests. It is not unusual to feel spooked in the store, as occasionally there have been haunted elements, such as dolls, or the room in the back of the store named the “funeral room.” That room showcases a real 1890’s wicker transport coffin which was used for multiple reasons. It has been reported to still contain “people goo.” Per Leslie, after placing the coffin in the funeral room she began hearing thumping sounds where the coffin was. She looked around for anything on the floor, or anything that may have caused the noise, and there was nothing. The room can have a heavy feeling. Leslie says “[The room] makes people feel weird and uncomfortable, and they won’t go into the funeral room.” When it comes to oddities, and the macabre, Candy’s Curiosities is the place to go.
I have vended at events where I was selling insects, and skulls with a black background, while surrounded by people selling lavender, bath soaps, and knit blankets all in pastels, I know what feeling like you don’t belong is like. Watching both Josh and Leslie create safe and inclusive environments for the people who feel like the odd, weird, different ones: the ones that love a good slasher flick, or the ones that want to own a haunted wicker coffin, it’s rejuvenating for my dark soul. They provide a place to meet friends who are the same, from all different backgrounds and abilities. They provide a place to let our freak flags fly high and proud, and a place to stand together in the dark, to create their own light.