Halloween Art and Nature Festival

If you're looking for a fun, family friendly event, make some time this Saturday to drive out to Arnaudville and attend the Halloween Art and Nature Festival! Due to last weekend's heavy rain, the festival was rescheduled to November 2, and is still from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.



Atelier de la Nature is a nine-acre experiment in a farm-returned-to-nature. Sustainable food educator Aurore Ballengée, artist and biologist Dr. Brandon Ballengée, and their children Victor and Lily began Atelier de la Nature in 2016. The former soy field is now a native prairie, hardwood and wetland habitat.

They are a partner of the NUNU Arts & Culture Collective, and are within the Cecilia et les Alentours Cultural District. The goal is to educate about the interconnection of the south Louisiana ecosystem. Atelier de la Nature offers French and English cooking demonstrations, guided nature walks, eco-workshops, and art and science educational programming.

The festival has a ton of activities planned, including:
  • Trick or treating,
  • Halloween-themed stories in French and English
  • DIY costume making/cosplay workshop and contest
  • Bio-art painting demonstration using live microbes
  • Mythical Afro-futurist heroes workshop, based on Louisiana folklore and African mythology
  • Japanese Pickle making and Kim-Chi fermentation workshop
  • DIY walking stick workshop
  • Ghostbusters archery activity
  • Jack-o-lantern bath bomb decorating
  • Deuxième Vie Creative reuse activity
  • Hands-on educational presentations about native reptiles and amphibians with live animals and natural history artifacts (skins, shells, bones)
  • A "Beetlemania" exhibit featuring live spiders, scorpions beetles and other creepy crawlers
  • Solar power workshop and demo
  • Building a bee hotel to help insects
  • Ceramics activities with clay from the Atelier de la Nature
  • Traiteur medicinal plant walk and making paint from plants activity
  • Fortune telling and spooky face-painting
  • Geodesic dome from bamboo activity,
  • Presentations on native wildlife, native plants use and how to create safe nesting areas benefiting Louisiana's bird populations

Participating organizations include:
  • Acadiana Center for the Arts
  • Acadiana Master Naturalists
  • Acadiana Native Plant Project
  • Atchafalaya National Heritage Area
  • Audubon Louisiana
  • Bain Amour Bath & Body Company
  • Cecilia et les Alentours
  • Cub Scouts Pack 301
  • Deuxième Vie Creative
  • Elizabeth FX
  • Field Hat Studios
  • LASOAR (Louisiana Association of Sports, Outdoor Adventure, and Recreation)
  • Les Deux Mondes
  • Longfellow Evangeline State Historic Site
  • Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries
  • Louisiana Amphibian And Reptile Enthusiasts (L.A.R.E.)
  • LSU Ag Center
  • LSU Entomology Club
  • LSU Museum of Natural Science
  • New Generation Seafood
  • Red Hatter Productions
  • St. Martin Parish Public Library
  • TECHE Project
  • Tee Jugs, LLC
  • Teens Outdoor Education and Service (T.O.E.S.)
  • The Beetle Experience
  • The Walls Project/ Baton Roots
  • University of Louisiana at Lafayette Anthropology Program
  • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
  • USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service
  • University of Tennessee Sculpture Club


Festival organizers advise attendees to bring a chair. Food and drinks will be available.

GO

Atelier de la Nature, 1050 Andrew Gautreaux Road, Arnaudville, LA 70512
(off Coteau Rodaire Hwy, north of I-10 Exit 115 Cecilia/Henderson)
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