Around the Bend

Down the road, around the bend, there’s an empty barn nearing its end.

Sagging roof, windows gaping, weathered wood, rusted hinges, swiftly aging.

(my adaptation of the first verse of a poem by Vance Oliphant)

For the last ten years my morning walk has taken me past a small park that allows the view of an old barn on private property. Having grown up on a farm with two huge barns ( at least they seemed huge to a young child) I feel that tug of nostalgia every time I see it through the woods. With permission of the owner I have been taking seasonal pictures every year, noting it’s slow deterioration. From those photos I have planned a series of seasonal art quilts to preserve it’s end of life story.

Work on the winter season neared completion before it came to me that “my” barn also served as a metaphor for year’s end and, indeed, the winter of our lives. As I collect, paint, dye, and print more fabrics and photos for the other seasons I also find new meaning to interpret the story, the history, the emotions that old barns, nearing their end hold for me.