Gold Key was lurid as hell I've mentioned in the personal project posts that I want to make a collage about a candy store I frequented as a kid. That probably sounds weird. Let me elaborate (though it will still sound weird). I switched banks recently and got to talking to the personal banker about our childhoods. To my surprise, he grew up in the same small town, in the same neighborhood - and before I could say anything about it, he said, "Do you remember Dorothy's Sundries

This month's passion projects involve that upcoming jewelry launch I've mentioned before, a personal collage (this will be a separate post), a finished painting, and my renewed love for photography combined with my love of exploring. I made myself a trial bracelet and necklace for the jewelry line. For the bracelet, instead of using the silver lined seed beads I'll use for the line's bracelets, I used some 3mm gemstone beads I've been wanting to work with for a few years but

It's been a while. I took a little break to get some fresh perspective and learn some new things, to up my game. I started a new painting, this time an homage to Peter Max, a longtime favorite artist. It's specifically my version of his Sunrise 2000 , meant to help me learn technique. I had so much fun with it, and am now almost done. I just want to "gild" the edges of it with a metallic gold paint and sign it. I've redone a fair amount of it since this progress picture, but

A long time ago, I wrote a couple of essays about why I love Leonard Nimoy so much, and since I already do an "admires" feature, and today would have been his 95th birthday, I have combined them into Vol. 6 of the Magic Attic Admires. There’s a reason that I tag anything he’s in with: “I love this man”. The following are some of the reasons why. (Warning: I’m an unabashed fangirl.) I love him because he’s a photographer , degreed in it and everything, and a damn impressive on

A new digital camera is a new lease on life for me. My old camera was getting very old and not performing as I need it to. I didn't want to break the bank and buy brand new, nor am I comfortable with mirrorless technology yet. So a "new" (to me) DSLR it is. I bought a used Canon Digital Rebel T7 from Adorama. Received it on a Tuesday, took it out for a spin on the Saturday following. I shot the "creepy bunnies" I shot so many times years ago, the Quarry Trails falls, a Great

One of my favorite days of the year for three reasons. 1) I have Irish heritage in the way back and it does stir something in my blood. Just like the veil between life and death is said to be thinner on Halloween, the veil between my everyday life and the Irish family past is thinner on March 17. I can feel the mist in the air, and ... 2) The scent in the air of the green, growing things there soon will be. It comes from both the rolling green land of collective family memory

Another eccentric titled person from the early 20th century who let their freak flag fly and drained the family coffers to do so! And again, because this is 2026 and you are now obligated to issue a tiresome disclaimer before liking anything: I don't admire the profligacy, just the determination to publicly be his crazy damn self no matter what. I'll skip the early bio again and get to the point: Henry was a young boy when enough people in the family line died to give him the

The Magic Attic Art Company has been around in one form or another for four years, and in that time, my tastes have changed, including in what I make. Some of the things I've made in the time since I got started no longer conform to the present-day Magic Attic aesthetic, so I am ready to move on and sell them off at a discount. To clear out the old stock, The Magic Attic's first clearance sale will start later this year. I will offer these older items at a 25% discount for ab

We've got a live one here, folks. The Marchesa Luisa Casati was a true eccentric, another Bohemian like Peggy Guggenheim who led a romantic life - though hers was ultimately sadder. by Augustus Edwin John, 1919 Now, this entry I must start with a disclaimer. When The Magic Attic Admires a person or thing, the admiration doesn't extend to everything they did or said, every decision they made. The admiration is usually limited to their willingness to be publicly, genuinely, t

Between 1936 and 1962, Diana Vreeland, editor of Harper's Bazaar, wrote a series of articles for the fashion magazine. These articles were full of whimsical, fanciful, outrageous, wildly unrealistic suggestions to make your life more stylish and pleasurable. Examples below: Why don’t you… put all your dogs in bright yellow collars and leads like all the dogs in Paris? Tie black tulle bows on your wrists? Have two pairs of day shoes exactly alike, except that one pair has thin

There is much in store this year for The Magic Attic Art Company, but there are a lot of personal projects too. Since I hold to the concept of "moving in silence," I won't share too much, but I will share a little now and more once they're done! I am redoing my bedroom and to that end, I bought a 36" by 48" canvas for that big wide open space above the bed. It will be an abstract in jewel tones and gold. I'll be brushing up, no pun intended, on plotting out abstracts beforeha

Or you can click here I look forward to January every year. I know many think I'm crazy; it's still winter, but all of the "fun" is gone. Well, after the frantic Christmas shopping, getting the decorations up, traveling around, making the dinner, cleaning up after the dinner, returning gifts, getting the decorations down, eating lots and lots of sugar, etc. is all over, finally, finally , it is January and I can take a breath. There is no real stress over January (aside from

I'd intended to make my own Christmas cards, either a linocut or my own photos printed onto cards, as I mentioned here . Photo cards are now, as with everything else, expensive so I thought a linocut would be more fun. And I know that if it had worked out, it would have been. I follow a lot of artists online and something I don't see often is posts or remarks about a failed project. Well, my linocut Christmas cards were a failure and I'm posting about it! I drew something I l

You can find me here, of course, but there are other places to find me and my work or socials for The Magic Attic Art Company. The sister site for Magic Attic on Etsy : where it all began four years ago, and where I have over 100 sales with a 5 star rating. Dania Hurley on Flickr : Where it really all began. I got a point and shoot in January 2006 and wanted a place to share my peripatetic photos with friends and family. It developed into a passion, leading me to create the n

I don't often send Christmas cards anymore. I used to. There was a time in the late '90s and early aughts when a friend and I would sit down on Thanksgiving night with two boxes of cards each (that we'd painstakingly chosen in the weeks before), two books of stamps each, our lists of recipients, the Christmas quotes we'd chosen to go inside, stickers to use as seals, green and red pens, and work our way through the lists together. We'd knock out our entire lists by 10 o' cloc

I have some various works in my personal life that I thought I'd share. My company has a pumpkin decorating contest every year, and finally - this is my third Halloween there - I was able to participate. My pumpkin was inspired by this fabulous pumpkin by Vanessa Valencia of A Fanciful Twist. (Look for her in a future installment of The Magic Attic Admires). My initial idea was to set the pumpkin on a brass candlestick, but it ended up being too small for the pumpkin. I found

On Sunday, October 26, I attended the Art For Life fundraiser in downtown Columbus's new Arts District. This event occurs every two years and benefits AIDS research. Artworks are chosen from submissions and auctioned in either the silent auction or the live auction. All of the proceeds go to Art For Life. My photo, Speak the Truth, ended up going for $610! I'm very pleased that my small effort (very small - 6 X 6!) was able to raise that much for such a good cause. It was an

This is a repost of my Halloween post for 2011 on my photo blog, All Eyes And Ears. I drove around central Ohio and took the photos, and it's still one of my favorite pieces I've done. It's a strange feeling standing directly over the grave of a known murderer. I've done it a couple of times now for these old Halloween features. Original Post Date: OCTOBER 31, 2011 “On Tuesday, February 19, 1918, Forest Bigelow, a forty-two-year-old agent for the Ohio National Life Insurance

Vincent Price with his art collection, 1940s Yes, Vincent Price! And while I am A Halloween Girl and I've called him one of my "October boyfriends" for a while (I see a LOT of him, Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee every October) that's not even why! I mean, there's a lot there to admire. He had a classic, upwardly mobile Old Hollywood career throughout the '30s and '40s - Dragonwyck, Laura, etc. - and was then graylisted during the McCarthy witch hunts . This altered the

I love and work in (not nearly often enough) a number of different aesthetics and I'll cover them on the blog, explaining each as I have my names for them and don't expect anyone else to know what the hell I mean by them. One that I love is vintage Halloween. The early part of the last century's ornate, odd postcards, the creepy-that-was-cute-at-the-time style of the '20s and '30s, on up through the '70s and '80s. And don't forget the Beistle decorations! Crimson Peak Anothe