I have always been fascinated by witches. I was scared of them, of course. One lived under my bed, one in my closet. The one under my bed had, like Snoopy in his dog house, an absurdly huge subterranean palace. Always stirring a wooden spoon in her humongous cauldron of hot bubbling substances, she was waiting to add a juicy piece of child meat to her magical soup. I was terrified of leaving a foot sticking out past the bed’s edge, for fear that she would pull me under and throw me into her pot. My visions of witches were informed by the classic Grimm fairy tales, just as Disney’s movies were. Having German parents who emigrated to the States before I was born, and sometimes embarking on those rare cross-Atlantic airplane trips, I was familiar with the lush German forests and a culture of mysticism rooted in them. The dense, dark pine trees obviously hid witches’ huts from general view. A favorite carnival disguise was the witch, with fabric-shred dresses and self-made cardboard ...

Born in Austin, Texas to German parents, Halona Hilbertz moved to Munich, Germany, at eight years of age. She spent her teenage years in Düsseldorf and later studied Painting and Performance Art at Hochschule der Bildenden Kuenste Saar in Saarbrücken - in that part of Europe that could never quite decide if it was German or French - and at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Canada. Now living in Brooklyn, Halona pursues art and music while taking care of her family, animals, plants, homes, an art salon, and her job. Halona’s work has been included in group and solo shows in the U.S., Europe, the U.A.E., China, and Canada. Her art examines empathy; life as it goes hand in hand with death; spiritual connection with the natural world; and humankind’s grappling with its own destructive tendencies. She likes to employ a wide variety of media, concentrating in recent years on making wall objects and paper collages. Halona co-founded Full Tank, an all-female experim...