Every year, we do a Halloween challenge within our Relics & Artifacts® Tribe on Facebook.  This year, we are going to ratchet up our typical Halloween challenge a bit since we are all about the challenging, inspiring, and really stepping out of our creative comfort zones.

For this year's spooktacular, we are going to tap into literary history and provide our own interpretations that will be illustrated through our art. Art is also about exploring other realms and letting those artful realms inspire us. Often, a big inspiration for artists, aside from life, is literature.

With this one, please read the literary passages below. They are from two classic spooky, scary, writings by two authors who are almost synonymous with Halloween. The first is from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”. The second is from Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”.

Choose the passage that resonates with you and haunts your soul.  Create a piece of art using MUSE Art Stamps, resin, craft blanks, and whatever else calls to you that illustrates your chosen passage based on your interpretation.

Be sure to use #RALiteraryHauntings in your upload to be entered! When uploading your piece, please be sure to provide a brief background story on your interpretation and what about your chosen passage moved you to make you chose. Who knows? We might feature your piece and story on the Muse!

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“The Tell-Tale Heart”
Edgar Allan Poe

“Presently, I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief--oh no!--it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me.”

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“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Washington Irving

“Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs, are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air.”

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All submissions are due by midnight October 31.  You can enter your piece by joining our Relics & Artifact® Tribe on Facebook or by using #RALiteraryHauntings on Instagram.