Brandon Hardy is a full-time artist who makes original works in puppetry, painting and sculpture and also creates props, puppets, and scenery for Broadway, television, and stages around the world. He built a following on Tiktok by making videos showing how he was staying creative during the pandemic. Because of its success, he just launched an expansion—a spooky web series called “Out of the Ether with Brandon Hardy,” where he’ll be doing longer tutorials showing how he makes his most haunting and complex projects, including his puppets for the Village Halloween Parade (Billy Butcherson and the Sanderson Sisters).
How did you get into costuming/puppeteering?
“I’ve always had an interest in it. I grew up watching things like The Muppets and Pinocchio and The Nightmare Before Christmas, which sort of turned my eye toward puppetry, and from there looked into things that took the artform even further and in stranger directions. I was the kid who turned the garage into a haunted house every Halloween, and I never grew out of it. I still make stuff in the garage, but things have expanded far beyond too.”
What is your favorite costume from childhood?
“Once I made a costume where it looked like a was riding on the back of a giant penguin, with my feet in the penguin’s feet and fake legs straddling it—that was the year my parents decided I was old enough to be trusted with a hot glue gun, so I swung hard. I got some weird looks on Halloween, but I think that encouraged me more than it discouraged me.”
What made you want to participate in the parade originally and what keeps you coming back?
“Halloween and puppets are two of my great life-long loves, so having an event in the city where they collide on such a massive scale was just a beacon to me. When I got there I realized what a real community-building event it was. It’s an annual opportunity to come together and make something enormous as a collective, which is so important in a city like New York. To affirm community with everybody and revel in that.
It’s both a cultural institution and an exhaust vent for the spirit. Every kind of person shows up and brings their own magnificent mess to share with everybody. The parade takes so many of our most elemental human instincts and gives them room to breathe—coming together, making things, celebrating, sharing, transforming, performing, witnessing … it’s music, dance, art, sculpture, theatre, procession, ritual, and it’s also rebellion, reclamation, protest, all those things at once. And it’s available to everyone to see or to be in, whichever we prefer, in one of the main arteries of New York.”
Where in NYC do you source your materials?
“Often I use leftover materials from other projects, or I’ll be inspired by something that was gonna go in the trash, but there are shops like Canal Foam and Rubber and Canal Plastics that I stop in no matter what I’m making. Those shops are incredible resources if you’re a creative person. I also shop throughout the Garment District for fabrics with surprising textures or movement, those can really bring a puppet to life, especially in the elements with the Parade. But I work a lot with what happens to be around me—there’s no prerequisite to making a great costume or puppet.”
What is your favorite spooky/atmospheric attraction in NYC?
“There are a lot of great purportedly-haunted buildings in this city that I love spending time around. Actually, the Jefferson Market Library is one of the best, and lucky us the parade goes right by it. We use its spectacular Clock Tower every year, Basil Twist’s giant Spider Puppet crawls out and descends right as the parade first reaches the building. The Spider is a living landmark of the parade; it hasn’t really begun until she shows up. I’ve been up there helping to Puppeteer her a few times over the years. The spooky feeling in that old tower can give you those real deep chills, and you can’t beat the view on Halloween.”
What are three places or people you draw your inspiration from?
“I’ve always been inspired by spooky movies from across the ages, especially ones that had less technology at their disposal. This year my costume is a character from Hocus Pocus, which was filled with practical effects. My costume is of the zombie Billy Butcherson, who gets his head knocked off a few times—I’m the right height to recreate that effect, so I have false shoulders by my head and then I made a zombie head that’s attached with magnets so it can come off.
The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland is also hugely inspiring. Every element of it is designed to create the impression of something impossible happening in front of you. There’s a vitality to that kind of magic trick, it scratches the part of my brain that’s torn between knowing it’s not real while feeling viscerally that it is.
And of course, something that always inspires me is other artists. When I was asked about being on this cover I was only interested if other artists were involved. No one person represents The Village Halloween Parade, it’s a cumulative effort. It comes from people working both together and separately to weave one big perfectly imperfect tapestry. Seeing what the other artists create makes me want to push to reach their level, but also support them in the making of their own works. It leads to this great recursive effect where everybody is growing from everybody’s growth.”
Have any Halloween costume tips?
“Personally, I say it’s OK to go BIG! Especially for the Halloween Parade. Be extra, take a creative risk, make that costume that’s gonna leave you sore the next day. I’m not somebody who limits their celebration of Halloween to October 31st, but if you are I think you should make the most of it. One of the best parts of Halloween is the permission to self-actualize, so if you want to shake things up it’s the perfect time to test-drive a new look or even a new personality. Use what you have and don’t be afraid to make a mess! Just be mindful of your surroundings so your costume doesn’t poke anybody’s eye out.”
