HalloWEIRD Art Market

Halloween Shopping That Is Not a Big Box Store

Del Ray Artisans run this every September and the name tells you what to expect. Around 45 local artists set up on the athletic fields at Mount Vernon Recreation Center selling the strange, the spooky and the seasonal. Ceramic bats, odd little prints, painted skulls, handmade jewelry with a dark streak. Saturday the 12th, 10 to 4, outdoors, rain or shine, and free to walk through.

This is the one for the kid who started planning their costume in July. It is browsing rather than doing, so it lands better with a child who can be talked into looking at things than with a toddler who needs to run. Give it forty minutes, not a whole morning, and let them pick one small thing. Fifth year running, so the artists know how to talk to children.

One address note, because it trips people up every single year. The market is on the fields at 2701 Commonwealth Avenue, not at the Del Ray Artisans gallery on Mount Vernon Avenue. The gallery is worth a stop anyway: it has a free Hispanic Heritage exhibit up through the end of September, which turns a quick market visit into a real outing.

Parent Tips 💡

• ✓Go to Commonwealth Avenue, not Mount Vernon Avenue. The gallery and the market are two different addresses and people mix them up.
• ✓Give your child a small budget. Handing over five dollars to spend turns browsing into a mission.
• ✓Keep it short. Forty minutes is the sweet spot before the looking gets old.
• ✓Add the gallery. The Hispanic Heritage show a few blocks away is free and indoors.
• ✓Know it leans spooky. Skeletons and dark humor are the theme. Fun for most kids, a lot for the very sensitive ones.