Thoughtful Thursday: October's Grand Finale
“There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for that brightly-lit front porch.” -Robert Brault
Fall is my personal favorite season, with October winning the lottery for best month of the year! October’s weather, colors, smells and harvested bounty tip the scales with glorious abundance. Take a deep breath, October smells of crisp, clean air, cinnamon-laced apples, and the earthy, musk of decaying leaves. Taste fall’s fruit: briny, fat oysters, cabbages, pumpkin, and pears. Ginger, cloves and nutmeg lend a sweet warmth to the end of year harvest. Sip and slurp October’s essence in ciders, lattes, martinis, sauces and butters. As glorious as all of this is, it is merely a prelude to October’s grand finale!
Sorcerers, witches, ghosts and goblins emerge in October for their Halloween homecoming, dancing in neighborhoods and marching in parades. Pint-sized football players, two-legged bumble bees and bright green Kermits prowl door-to-door for sweet indulgences. Pumpkins and strangely shaped gourds scream for faces to be carved in their flesh. Candy corn, cream filled caramels and fun-sized tootsie rolls are Autumn delicacies. Halloween brings out the child in us even if our trick or treat days have long passed.
Halloween is so much more than masks and costumes, it celebrates the magic of make-believe and pretend! For a few short hours, on this one night each year, your imagination fuels your identity. A plastic tiara or green face paint mysteriously transforms even the meekest soul into a force to be reckoned with. Bed sheets make ghosts and Dad’s flannel shirt a scarecrow as, clothes become costumes and stories evolve. Laughter, whispers, the rustling of leaves followed by doorbells forecast trick or treat! The evening’s haul fills a pumpkin shaped tote with candy galore to fuel sweet dreams and temptations for children of all ages long past the witching hour.
A gallery is a fun-house of fantasy and imagination. Artists weave a spell through color and form that ensnares the viewer in a web of wonder and majesty and memories and dreams. The familiar, through the artist’s vision, is transformed to new prompting a myriad of emotions at once: curiosity, awe, longing and nostalgia. In an artist’s hand, the brush becomes a sorcerer’s wand. An artist’s ability to make the ordinary extraordinary is no less magical than turning a pumpkin into a carriage!
To find your make-believe, please visit our gallery in Chestertown or shop virtually at www.lespoissonsgallery.com