Our Weird spin on Macy's holiday windows!
Weird artists transform downtown Durham storefronts into holiday displays to be unveiled during Durham's annual tree lighting celebration. Check out our artists below!
THE ARTISTS
On display 🎄 Friday, Nov 21 through early January!
Window Shopping in an Alternate Reality by Jeghetto
📍 407 E Chapel Hill St, Durham, NC
An alternate sci-fi reality where robots and humans coexist during the holiday shopping season.
Tarish Pipkins a.k.a. “Jeghetto” is a master puppeteer who has been building his puppets out of recycled and found materials for over 20 years. He’s worked with Missy Elliott, Pharrell Williams, Alec Baldwin, Terence Nance (Random Acts of Flyness) and others. He is also a board member of the Jim Henson Foundation. Jeghetto performs his unique style of puppet theater in venues and festivals across the country, and facilitates puppet workshops and residencies for all ages in person and online. Learn all about him and his work at jeghetto.com.
The Holiday Party
by Jordan Grace Owens
📍 309 E Chapel Hill St, Durham, NC
Plays off the voyeuristic nature of peeking in on a strange office holiday party.
”I’m a big fan of Marisol’s wonderfully weird sculptures, and my installation is inspired by one of her most well-known works called “The Party.” One of my favorite things about Marisol’s work — and something I attempt to do in my work as well — is the way she blurs the line between figure and object."
Jordan Grace Owens is an artist based in Durham, who creates colorful compositions of expressive abstract shapes. She makes semi-sculptural figures and abstract paintings that blur lines between shapes, objects, and bodies. You can find her work at jordangraceowens.com, on the walls and windows of Red Start Foods, or in her studio at Golden Belt.
A Reclaimed Christmas
by Ali Waller
Pays homage to those reclaiming old traditions for themselves.
“This project was enticing because I am not usually the most festive around Christmas time. As someone who does not spend time with family or have the “normal” holiday rituals, I have been empowered to create many of my own this time of year.”
Ali Waller emerged in the art scene at 18 in Glasgow, Scotland and has been fluttering around the east coast as a sculptor for the past eight years while being anchored right here in Durham. Themes in her work confront the harsh realities of trauma through the display of hyperrealistic life casts mixed with her own illustrative iconography. Her current work invites the viewer to step into death and the afterlife through fantasy, alters, nature, nostalgia, and the occasional dismembered limbs which frame the stories she conveys.
Carnival of Dogs
by Christian Smith
📍 307 West Main St, Durham, NC
Inspired by vintage toy and pet store displays.
”When I heard the prompt all I could think of was the department store in “A Christmas Story” and how it was such a hodgepodge of toys/holiday/pop culture, and I wanted to lean into something a bit more whimsical. I’d love to bring something fun to downtown to make people’s time there a little brighter.”
Christian is a Raleigh based artist, inspired by vintage comics, westerns, and all things clown! He focuses primarily on painted clothing and hand cut wooden pieces. His work can be found at local markets, coffee shops and bars.
A Holiday Under the Sea
by Bob Ostrom
📍 107 E Chapel Hill St, Durham, NC
An undersea holiday with mermaids and their underwater friends.
”When I was 25, I decided I wanted to illustrate children's books, so I quit my job in advertising and got a rep. Everyone thought I was crazy, but it was the best career decision I ever made. For the next thirty years or so, I illustrated children's books. It was awesome.
When I began my career as an illustrator, I created everything by hand. Over the years, as new technologies replaced old, I found myself in a 100% digital world with few traces of my past.
I got good at it because I've made it a point to be tech savvy, but the more advanced it gets, the more I find I miss making stuff with my hands."
Be Audacious
by Sabrina Servance
A bold take on what the holidays look like.
”I love the idea of doing two things I love for the community to see - art and windows! Usually everything is so traditional and people forget that there is joy in color. With everything going on in this world, it’s time to let loose and be audacious!”
Sabrina Servance is a mixed-media artist whose practice examines identity, memory, and transformation through layered visual narratives. She was a visual manager for 20 years and is happy to be free of corporate rules!
Santa's Werkshop
by Jason Lord
Vaguely gives “Santa’s Workshop,” but weirder.
”Weird Windows is exactly the kind of work I want to make: a public-facing intervention that activates regular people’s curiosity outside of the white cube gallery space. I want people to be hustling by and to be stopped by their own curiosity — what is happening in this window?”
Jason Lord is an interdisciplinary artist based in Durham. He stacks things, goes for photo walks, makes drawings, records rambling monologues, stands on the corner with a sign, glues stuff together, makes music, shaves wood, slops paint, and conducts various material and interpersonal experiments to see what will happen.