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After Christmas in July, there’s Halloween in August.

As some retail stores are already hauling out their spooky stock, the Philadelphia Magic Gardens has opened an exhibition of Dia de los Muertos folk art figures.

“Don’t get me started on how much I love Halloween,” said Executive Director Emily Smith. “It should be all year round.”

The Mexican Day of the Dead holiday on Nov. 1 is often associated with Halloween, though it centers on honoring the spirits of the departed, and celebrating with those who still walk among us.

The Magic Gardens exhibition “Viviendo a través de la Muerte” (“Living Through Death”) features 36 cartonería figures made of papier-mâché by Ivette Chaires, a folk artist based in Puebla, Mexico. Most of the skeletal figures are inspired by Chaires’ time spent in Philadelphia at the Magic Gardens and with its founder, Isaiah Zagar.

“The work is an homage to him,” Chaires said.

An unexpected eulogy in papier-mâché

Chaires visited Philadelphia for two weeks in 2024 as part of the Julia Zagar Residency for Women Artists, founded by Zagar’s wife, Julia, in 2016 and run by the Magic Gardens. Chaires was the first artist to participate after the program was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She returned to her studio in Puebla and spent most of 2025 making cartonería portraits of Isaiah, Julia and the people around them.

Chaires could not have known that six months before “Viviendo a través de la Muerte” would open — her first solo exhibition anywhere — her Dia de los Muertos portraits of Zagar as a comically dead figure would be posthumous. Zagar died in February at the age of 86.

“When we walked into her studio to pick up the work, we had no idea that this was the body of work that had been created. We were all just sobbing,” Smith said. “It was in the springtime, and we were still really going through it.”

Some of the figures show Zagar paired with his students and collaborators, based on photos. Another shows Zagar as he often portrayed himself in doodles as a manic figure with multiple arms, accompanied by the phrase “Art is the center of the real world.” Another is a seated portrait of a young Isaiah and Julia.

Other figures are not directly related to Zagar, like a pair of identically gowned women, one whose heart is exposed in her chest and the other holding her bloodied heart in her outstretched hand. Another pair of women figures are adorned with monarch butterflies, which typically fly across the Mexican-American border according to the season.

“Just like art, traditions are constantly in motion,” Chaires said. “It is important to transform them so they remain relevant for new generations.”

Finding the comedy in death

Traditional cartonería are inherently lighthearted, blending death and life into a whimsical partnership that are often displayed on altars honoring the dead. Julia Zagar said having one based on her late husband is what he would have wanted.

“I love it,” she said. “What’s called in Spanish the ‘intercambio,’ the combination of art and life, or art and death, is fantastic. It is what should be.”

Smith said the exhibition is a welcome salve at a time when the staff of Magic Gardens and the people surrounding the Zagars are still grieving Isaiah’s death.

“There’s a harmony that you can find in Mexico and this connection between life and death. It’s a little bit more talked about or expressed and part of everyday life,” she said. “I think not only here at the organization, but, in general, we all need to be doing that more and more. There is something really beautiful about this work. It’s kind of dark, but it’s also really funny. Anyone who’s gone through a death process understands there’s humor and darkness to it.”

“Viviendo a través de la Muerte” will remain on view at the Philadelphia Magic Gardens through the Day of the Dead, Nov. 1, before closing on Nov. 8.