Lantern Making & Singing Workshop
Create, sing, and welcome the changing season in this participatory workshop inspired by Samhain, harvest, remembrance, and the transition into winter.
Participants will create their own lanterns using glass jars & tissue paper. Once layered with translucent tissue paper, makers will complete with a base, handle, and LED tea light.
Throughout the creative process, participants will also learn and sing simple traditional seasonal songs, including rounds, harmonies, and call-and-response. Singing will be woven into the making process, creating opportunities to work independently and come together as a group.

Kyla Kegler (b. 1985) is an interdisciplinary artist working across film, performance, sculpture, painting, and ceramics. Her practice explores fantasy, relationship, pleasure, purpose, and the ways meaning is shaped through embodied and collective experience.
Early in her career, Kegler interned with Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont and co-founded the underground theater Zuhause in Berlin. She holds an MA in Solo/Dance/Authorship from the Art University of Berlin and an MFA in Studio Art from the University at Buffalo.
Her work has been presented at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Rivalry Projects, NADA NY, Artpark, Torn Space Theater, Big Orbit, Handwerker Gallery at Ithaca College, Undercurrent Gallery in Brooklyn, Zuhause and Ufer Studios in Berlin. Recent projects include R.d.f.t.c. (Relationships don’t finish, they change) (2024) and The Last Whole Earth (2026). Her 2025 film The Accumulation of Meaning Over Time was funded by the UB Humanities Communities of Care Grant and NYSCA. (@kyla.kegler)

Honoring the Past, Acknowledging the Future is a hands-on crochet and yarn art workshop exploring the space between traditional craft and modern creativity.
Using pre-made crochet elements such as granny squares and triangles, participants will experiment with color, shape, and arrangement to create something entirely their own. Projects might include bags, hats, coasters, accessories, or other unique designs.
Beginner-friendly and open to all, the workshop invites participants to reimagine a timeless craft, connecting the traditions of the past with contemporary creativity and personal expression.

Jheanelle Kerr has been crocheting for several years and takes joy in working with others to share this timeless craft. She believes crochet is an ancient art form that continues to inspire in new and modern ways. Through workshops, she encourages creativity, connection, and pride by teaching participants how to bring yarn to life with their own hands. She believes crochet is not just about making something tangible, it’s about storytelling, preserving culture, and celebrating community. (@CrochetsbyJheanelle)

Winter Poetry: Sampling Between Worlds is a participatory music and creative-writing workshop inspired by this year’s festival theme, Samhain: Between Worlds.
Drawing from Y.N.X.716’s album Winter Poetry, participants will explore the spaces between seasons, memories, experiences, and personal chapters. Through poetry, storytelling, sound, and beat-making, participants will transform everyday sounds and personal reflections into an original poem.
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The workshop explores four elements:
🌬️ Wind — The Air We Breathe
Reflect on breath, freedom, and being present.
💧 Water — Cleansing & Renewal
Explore what you want to release, wash away, or carry forward.
🔥 Fire — Transformation
Reflect on the experiences that have shaped you and what you are ready to let go of.
🌑 Night — Reflection
Listen to the quiet and explore memories, thoughts, and the wisdom found through experience.
Participants will choose a sound as their starting point and use it to create a piece of poetry that connects their own story to the space between worlds.

Y.N.X.716 is a lyricist, poet, and teaching artist who transforms the world around him into audio imagery. Through music, poetry, and sound, he turns everyday experiences, environments, and emotions into creative expressions that invite listeners to see, hear, and feel life from a different perspective. (@ynxbuffalo)

Gather your voice and join a welcoming, participatory song circle exploring folk songs, harmonies, and the traditions of singing together. No musical experience is necessary. Songs are taught by ear through simple call-and-response, with participants gradually learning to sing in rounds, layer parts, and discover harmonies together. The workshop is playful and inclusive, inviting us to experience music not simply as something to listen to, but something we create together.
In the spirit of Samhain: Between Worlds, the song circle will explore songs connected to darkness and light, change, remembrance, resilience, and the turning of the seasons. Elders and community members will also be invited to share and contextualize songs from their own traditions, allowing the repertoire to grow through the stories and voices of those gathered.
Come as you are, bring your voice, and add it to the circle.

Andrea With is a song leader, storyteller, curator, community organizer, and the Community Leader of L'Arche Buffalo. Andrea delights in creating spaces of tenderness, joy, and reflection across difference. She began leading songs with careworkers and adults with disabilities through her work with L'Arche, and found it was a compelling format to share stories, hopes, grief, and time across language and ability. (@larchebuffalo )

​Samhain marks a time of transition, as the world moves from light to dark, warmth to cold, and activity to winter’s quiet. Around us, animals migrate or prepare for hibernation, crops die back, and the landscape begins to change.
In this hands-on art workshop, participants will explore this seasonal transition through printmaking and collage. They will create patterns, textures, and images on paper, then cut and arrange their prints into colorful birds preparing to migrate, including orioles, geese, gulls, and other familiar species. A creative exploration of change, movement, and the journey between worlds and seasons.

Evelyn teaches at Locust Street Art. Locust Street Art  provides free or low-cost art classes on a consistent basis for any individual, especially youth, low-income and minority individuals from age 4 to senior adult, to seriously develop the talent and skills necessary to excel in the visual arts. (@locuststreetart) 

AKG Art truck has joined us annually customizing projects for festival goers to the theme each year, we are excited to welcome them back.

​Get creative with this TENfold Gallery workshop 

​with Eat Off Art in this hands-on, beginner-friendly workshop! Use coloring and drawing to explore colors, patterns, and ideas, then turn your artwork into a wearable button. Discover how a small design can express your personality, share a message, or bring a little joy to someone’s day. Leave with your own finished buttons and fresh inspiration to keep creating!

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You can sign up to reserve a spot https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/old-first-ward-festival

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Join this TENfold Gallery workshop with Mirabo Press Art, (Rachel Shelton & Sudi Wang)

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Get hands-on with relief printing in this beginner-friendly workshop! Using pre-carved relief blocks, you’ll learn how to roll ink onto a block and create your own print by hand. Explore the basics of how relief printing works, experiment with ink and paper, and discover simple ways to continue printing at home. Leave with your own finished print and the skills to keep creating!

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You can sign up to reserve a spot https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/old-first-ward-festival

Paper Pumpkin Collage Decorating: Participants will decorate small pie pumpkins using strips of handmade paper, sheet music or book pages, gluing them down to cover the entire surface. The decorated pumpkins will last all season and then can be composted or tossed into the garden later to return to the earth. Fun craft for all ages. Under 5 will likely need some assistance from an adult. 

Papercraft Miracles is an eco-friendly handmade paper art company. We make magical things out of paper that bring meaning to people's lives. Handmade paper & stationery, paper flowers, handbound books, home goods, and plantable seed bombs. Specializing in sustainable weddings & events, corporate gifting & swag, and custom orders. Helping people connect, communicate & celebrate since 2013.  (@papercraftmiracles)


 

CEPA will be joining us again for the 4th year with their portable dark room, festival goers will make blue prints right on Republic Street to take home.

The Buffalo Aerial Dancers will be joining us staring at 2pm.

Soundpainting: Composing Between Worlds
Soundpainting is a live composing language that brings musicians, actors, dancers, and other performers together to create art in real time. Using a series of hand gestures, a Soundpainter guides participants in building an original, spontaneous composition.
In this introductory workshop, participants will learn a selection of Soundpainting gestures and use them to create short multidisciplinary performances inspired by the changing seasons, memories of fall turning to winter, and the transitions we experience throughout our lives.
Because each piece is created in the moment, no two performances are ever exactly alike. The workshop invites participants to listen, respond, experiment, and collaborate, creating something that exists only in that particular place and time.
A playful exploration of transition, memory, collaboration, and the fleeting nature of each season.

Courtney Horner is a multidisciplinary artist, composer, and musician based in Buffalo, New York. They studied music composition at Oberlin College and performed in the Oberlin Soundpainting Ensemble. After becoming enamored by live composition and moving to Ithaca, New York, which did not yet have a soundpainting presence, they founded Soundpainting Ithaca. Courtney combines their interests of music, storytelling, natural environment, and sense of place by creating pieces that connect performers and audience alike with their environment and explore continuity and change, creativity and collaboration.
(@chcreative) 

In the weeks leading up to the festival, Emma and her team are working with the youth program at the Old First Ward Community Center to create a collection of handmade puppets inspired by the neighborhood, its stories, and the spirit of the season.

These young artists will bring their creations to life during our Puppet Parade, a joyful procession through the festival featuring their handmade characters, imagination, and plenty of community spirit. Come watch as the puppets make their way through the Old First Ward and celebrate the creativity of the next generation of neighborhood artists.

Tucked & Treasured: Samhain Keepsake Boxes
Participants will celebrate Samhain by creating a keepsake match box for what they hold dear using fabric, paper, ribbons and other embellishments. Metal affirmation charms and paper messages will help store memories, wishes, and intentions. The box is a traveling reminder of those we honor, what grounds us, and what we hope to carry forward into the next season.

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Dr. Julie Carter is an artist, art teacher, and retired university professor. She founded Buffalo Makers Hub in 2025 to bring more joy and creativity to her Western New York community, especially for those seeking new activities to help manage stress and make more connections with other makers. 

Step into a world of light, shadow, and storytelling in this hands-on, family-friendly workshop inspired by Samhain and the tradition of gathering together to share stories in the dark.
Participants of all ages will create their own storytelling materials. Younger children can decorate paper lanterns and make simple shadow puppets, while older children can create tin lanterns and more elaborate puppets with moving parts. Teens and adults can build miniature crankie boxes, creating tiny illuminated stories that unfold as the scroll is turned.
Once their creations are ready, participants will enter a darkened storytelling tent illuminated by solar and LED lanterns. Inside, they can experiment with light and shadow, use their puppets to tell stories, and share their creations with one another.
The workshop will also feature a special family-friendly Samhain-inspired shadow story performed using a large traditional-style crankie box.
A playful exploration of light and darkness, imagination and storytelling, and the space between worlds.

Meg Specksgoor is a published author, poet, dramatic writer, puppeteer, artist, storyteller, and community event organizer with a specific love for Celtic folklore and all things spooky. In 2024, she co-wrote and co-produced The Red Wallpaper, an eerie immersive theater experience on the upper floor of the Statler Hotel. In 2025, she received an ASI artist grant to write, produce, and stage a fairytale-esque shadow puppet and puppet show in Rust Belt Books. She is currently working on an immersive theater experience staged inside a functional diner, a horror novella involving eels and Celtic folklore, and shadow puppet community programming with Locust Street Art. 

Join Gloria for a hands-on ghost-making workshop and create your very own little spirit to take home. Using lace, fabric, and a simple round loom, you’ll transform soft, textured materials into a one-of-a-kind ghostly creation.

A fun, easygoing craft for all ages, and the perfect little ghost to haunt your home long after the festival is over.

The Paper Bonfire is an illuminated sculptural installation inspired by the tradition of gathering around a fire to share stories, memories, and community.
The installation will take the form of a large paper bonfire, approximately 5–6 feet across and 4–5 feet high. Layers of sculpted paper flames in shades of red, orange, and yellow will be illuminated from within, with flickering lights creating the appearance of a glowing, living fire. A ring of handmade paper stones will surround the base.
Designed as a gathering place, the installation invites festival-goers to sit around the fire, pause, and share stories or simply enjoy the warmth and glow of the space.
A contemporary interpretation of the traditional bonfire, The Paper Bonfire brings together light, sculpture, storytelling, and community in the spirit of Samhain: Between Worlds.

The Witches’ Tent: Between Two Realms

Step inside the Witches’ Tent and explore the space between two realms.

As the veil between worlds grows thin, we gather to honor those who came before us, reflect on what we are ready to leave behind, and set our intentions for the season ahead.

Visitors of all ages are invited to create a personal offering using words, wishes, drawings, symbols, and stickers. These creations will become part of a growing woven curtain and altar, with each contribution adding a new thread to our collective story.

Younger visitors can add their creations to the vines or place them within a symbolic fire inspired by the tradition of bonfire night.

As the day unfolds, the space will transform into a living tapestry of hopes, memories, intentions, and offerings, created together by everyone who passes through.

Come in, leave something behind, and add your thread to the space between worlds.

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Jordan (Jo) Roth & Shelby

Jordan (Jo) Roth (they/she) is a Western New York zine-maker, storyteller, and curator whose work explores queerness, resistance, grief, and joy through collage, photography, and writing. They also lead creative workshops and community events and run Cowboy Craft Club, a monthly zine mail subscription.

Shelby is a Western New York illustrative portrait artist whose multimedia work draws on surrealism, literature, empathy, and contemporary social issues. She also brings art into retirement communities through traveling painting workshops that celebrate creativity and connection at every age.

Together, they create interactive art experiences that make creativity accessible, meaningful, and welcoming to all ages.  (@shekitt23 @cowtheyjo @cowboycraftclub)

Ghostly Silent Film

Step into a strange and wonderfully spooky world with an ongoing silent film featuring a collection of quirky ghost scenes. Running throughout the festival, this playful cinematic experience invites you to stop, watch, and discover a few unexpected spirits along the way.

The Truth is the Trick and The Thing
The Truth is the Trick and The Thing is an interactive water and sound installation exploring Buffalo’s waterways through listening, touch, and sculpture.
Drawing water directly from the Buffalo River and Lake Erie, the artist creates hand-fabricated brass and copper instruments that hold the water within them. Part sculpture, part listening device, and part living archive, the instruments invite visitors to press them against their bodies, the ground, and the surrounding structures and listen to the water inside.
Field recordings made along the Buffalo River and Lake Erie capture the sounds of water, weather, wildlife, and the industrial landscape. These recordings become part of the installation’s sonic environment, allowing the waterways to be heard even when they are out of sight.
The work invites us to slow down and listen closely, considering water not simply as a landscape, but as a carrier of place, memory, history, and life.

Virocode is a collaborative art practice by Andrea Mancuso, Claudia D’Auria, and Peter D’Auria exploring the relationship between the organic and inorganic. Through photography, video, installation, and digital art, their work considers how human life is increasingly entangled with the non-biological world and the changing landscape of the Anthropocene.
The trio began working together at the State University of New York at Buffalo and have exhibited their work throughout the United States and Europe, including at MoMA, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Burchfield Penney Art Center, CEPA Gallery, Squeaky Wheel, and Hallwalls.
Their practice approaches our changing world with curiosity, exploring the unexpected ways inorganic materials can take on qualities of life and become part of our evolving relationship with the environment.

Gather around the fire and settle in for Fireside Stories, happening throughout the festival from 2–9pm.

Throughout the day, a rotating cast of storytellers will share tales inspired by the spirit of Samhain: Between Worlds. Hear stories drawn from local history, folklore, family traditions, legends, and, as the sun goes down, a few good ghost stories.

Stay for a story or linger awhile. You never know who will take a seat by the fire or what tale they might bring with them. Stories, history, legends, and a little bit of the supernatural, all shared around the fire.

​The Community Fabric Project brings together people from all walks of life to craft collaborative textiles—weaving people and communities together across the city. We believe that when people create together they find peace of mind, happiness, and well being.

Through this work, we hope to demonstrate that all

our successes are mutual and contribute to a community of trust that uplifts everyone.

See yourself between worlds. Hallwalls brings an interactive video installation to the festival that turns the simple act of walking by into a moment of surprise. A camera captures visitors as they pass, instantly displaying their image on a nearby television screen.

Step into view and suddenly, you’re part of the artwork.

Simple, playful, and endlessly entertaining, the installation invites festival-goers of all ages to stop, look, and see themselves in a whole new way.

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Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center is a multi-disciplinary art venue in Buffalo, NY, founded in 1974 to support the creation and presentation of new work in visual, media, performing, and literary arts.  Located in the Babeville building (the former Asbury Delaware Methodist Church), it is renowned for contemporary art exhibitions, film screenings, live jazz, and new music performances. 

(@hallwalls)

To end the festival we will be switching locations to enjoy a spooky screening on the biggest movie screen around. (@duende.silocity) 

Things in Motion will be on display for festival goers to enjoy.