Valhalla

This year’s Halloween tableau was like no other. The gilded hallways of Buddakan fed into a cavernous room with a massive table set for feasting. Each noble host perched beside or danced atop their table setting. We were their court.

The banquette table could be seen from above, but once you took the stairs you were heads lower than ghosts with bulbous, inflated skin, monsters with horned appendages that branched until they brushed the ceiling and reptilian creatures whose bodysuits were so seamless and consuming, it took me hours to recognize a friend.

Two particularly dashing royals were my friends Dylan Monroe, a zombie queen for the night, and Jessica Love, a lizard lady. They've both lent their looks to my paintings in the past and are part of the otherworldly, queer performance troupe, the Zand Collective.

My roommate Bonnie Burke, a talented photographer and a dead ringer as a dead rose, documented the evening. These are her photographs. More treats (and tricks) on her website and blog.

Getting ready. 

 

White Witch and Dead Rose

Susanne Bartsch's Halloween at Auntie Mame's

Table topping

In line for the bathroom

 Jessica Love