To show my Halloween spirit, I was gonna plaster this post with images of carved pumpkins, bubbling cauldrons, filmy ghosts—and creepy Michael Myers’ masks. But that all seemed much too been-there-done-that. Then I was thinking of doing something like this “Haute Halloween” article which shows how runway looks can inspire ideas for costumes. Well, I wasn’t really feeling that approach either.

So, in the end, I decided on this simple photo that I took at the National Gallery Sculpture Garden.

Roxy Paine, Graft, 2008-2009, stainless steel

The dendritic form looks strangely robotic, spidery and sinister. And I imagine it growing in front of a Tim Burton-esque haunted house. It just screams Halloween to me…