Hallowe'en

Happy Hallowe'en! "Summer's end" (Samhain in Irish) and the beginning of the season of return–from now until the winter solstice. The image above is carved on a piece of Valentia slate on the site of Sean O'Connell's house in the village of Cill Rialaig in County Kerry, Ireland. Sean O'Connell was a famous Kerry seanachai.

Noelle Campbell Sharp continues her visionary restoration of Cill Rialaig as an artists' retreat. We were fortunate to spend time there twice; the first time in 2003 our retreat ended on Hallowe'en night with an astonishing display of the aurora borealis. We pulled chairs out into the cold darkness and watched with mouths open as sheets & veils of color rippled and dissolved across the deep indigo sky above Ballinskelligs Bay.

It's a mess of fallen leaves today–on the snow. This is a giant cottonwood leaf, rather a giant leaf from a cottonwood, well, the tree is also quite a giant. Not giant in the same way hardwoods in Ohio are giant. Liking the combination of green & purple. Speaking of giants, parked next to a Nissan Titan today. Do the Nissan people know the Titans were overthrown and sent to Tartarus, an underworld below Hades? Just curious.

Patches

First patches, hmm. Hand sewing, slow & steady. Listening to Art of War, the Denma Translation, recorded by Sounds True here in Boulder. Making patches called "Tents of Armageddon" and recall a painting using the same pattern.

This painting was part of an installation called Feast.

It is the ritual drink–amrita.
Love the way this simple horizontally bisected diamond pattern can look 3D–or flat.

Experiment

Lots of fabric to experiment with. Drawn to Tents of Armageddon pattern–triangles, back-to-back. Seems to be this simple, the block, & used in many traditional patterns, such as "windmill." Found the name of the block in one of Eli Leon's books (Who'd A Thought It? or Accidentally on Purpose) on African American quilting. Stunning improvisation, like Gee's Bend quilters. These books, important inspiration. The way of working with pattern elusive, how & when the quilter breaks her pattern, creates another rhythm sequence, a parallel way of reading the… no, not parallel, more simultaneous. Maybe. Hard to explain the excitement of the experience. First glance, so simple; then try drawing it, uh-uh-uh, not so simple.
These are the fabrics I have cut so far; will add two pale yellows, one with tiny black triangles patterned on it. Can I discover how these fit?

Time flies.

Forty-eight hours of snow and 3 more tulips to plant. Hopeless, somewhat, because of deer & squirrels.
Nonetheless, there is still time, the ground is not frozen. Two of the bulbs are the yellow variety. Which ones? There were yellow hyacinth bulbs for sale, too. The deer don't eat them. Everyone loves a tulip, I guess.