The Neon Skeleton Candystore

An Arts Initiative from Second Chance Village

Second Chance Village is stepping into a new chapter with the launch of our Arts Initiative Program, a community-driven effort that treats creative practice as a real pathway toward stability, self-worth, and belonging. Alongside the peer support, outreach, and stabilization work we have been doing for nearly a decade, this initiative opens the door for participants, peers, and allies to make art together, tell their own stories, and build something they can share with the world. We believe that recovery, healing, and rebuilding a life are not only clinical processes; they are creative ones, and the Arts Initiative gives that side of the work a home.

Through this program, Second Chance Village supports songwriting, recording, visual art, writing, performance, puppetry, and hands-on workshops. It provides space, equipment access, mentorship, and collaboration opportunities so that people who have lived through homelessness, addiction, incarceration, family separation, and other hard chapters have a real place to create and be heard on their own terms.

Introducing The Neon Skeleton Candystore

Born directly out of the Arts Initiative Program, The Neon Skeleton Candystore is an art collective and collaborations group led by Ryan Scanlon, founder and director of Second Chance Village. It is a working home for artists to come together across mediums, share ideas, trade skills, and put out work that reflects who they actually are. The collective is built around consent, credit, ownership, and fair compensation for every contributor, so that the people making the art are the ones who benefit from it.

The release below is the first of many upcoming musical projects from The Neon Skeleton Candystore. Going forward, this page will also host other work from the collective, including additional music, visual art, writing, and other creative projects as they are ready to share.

Latest Release

Get the Album – $25

Dependency, Withdrawal, Relapse & Other Symptoms Of A Heart Condition is the debut release from The Neon Skeleton Candystore – fourteen original songs written and recorded through the Arts Initiative. The record is about dependency and the people caught in it, written from lived experience rather than observation. It contains explicit language and adult themes and is intended for adult listeners.

Listen

Two tracks from the album, free to stream. Explicit language.

Candyman

Under A Spell

Copies are $25, and proceeds go back into recording equipment, artwork, and studio time for the members who use the space. Purchase and download the album here.

Coming in October

The collective’s second album, fourteen new songs, drops this October. Check back here for the release.

Why We Make Things

“Creating art saved my life.”
BucketVisual artist

“Second Chance Village gave me a place to play my songs for people who understood me.”
Kenny, in memoriamMusician and songwriter. Second Chance Village remembers Kenny saying this.

In the Space

A participant sketches a character study in a spiral notebook — **Making the work**A participant sketches a character study during a creative session.

A participant works on a detailed illustration at the table — **Color and concentration**A participant works on a detailed illustration during open creative time.

**Pattern work**A participant adds color to a detailed mandala-style drawing.

A circle of chairs set up for a peer-led creative session — **A room built for gathering**Chairs set up for a peer-led creative session.

Chairs set up in the yard for outdoor music and creative time — **Music in the yard**Chairs set up outside for music and open creative time.

We’re now keeping count of participants, finished artwork, songs, recordings, workshops and performances, and we’ll update these numbers as the collective grows.