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.