there is a season

It finally feels and looks like fall here...after endless days of rain and even winter-like temperatures, we're seeing blue skies and crisp cool days, and the leaves are really starting to change.

I like fall. Summer will always be my first love, but fall is a pretty close second...I like like it. I was hiking at Radnor Lake yesterday thinking about autumn. The fall makes me nostalgic for things like apple picking and cider, canoeing and bonfires, for New England color (you haven't seen leaves change til you've seen them change north of the Mason-Dixon) and my grandmother's apple pie. The fall makes that corny line in You've Got Mail about bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils seem not quite as hokey.

But the fall also makes me a little sad...I am not a fan of winter, which in Tennessee is not so much a wonderland as it is a dreary gray mess. So while the fall is fun and beautiful, its also a reminder that winter is coming and another warm season has passed. Change—and not necessarily for the better—is on the horizon.

Isn't it sweet how pretty the transition from something I love to something I don't is...how beauty is found in one season dying. I think it's a testament to the mercy of God, that He softens the blow of the change by making it glorious. The leaves could just turn brown, or shrivel and drop overnight and leave us with the starkness of winter; the light could just disappear or turn gray and the clouds never clear. Instead we are given the splendor of the fall colors, the golden autumn light, and the crystal skies—a reminder that God is faithful in the heat of summer, in the change of autumn, and through the coming winter.

Summer and Winter

and Springtime and Harvest

Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above

Join with all nature in manifold witness

to Thy Great Faithfulness, Mercy and Love

--Great Is Thy Faithfulness

fall craftiness

This weekend was the first time it really felt like fall (sometimes winter with how ridiculously cold it was)...the leaves are a-changing, the weather is cooler, and the light is golden like it only is in the fall.

I was inspired to do a little fall crafting...I've always wanted to try gold leafing something, so I channeled my inner Martha and decided to embellish my autumn decor...why not?

before:

applying the gold leaf:

 

some of the finished gourds:

the final centerpiece

 

Eat your heart out, Martha.

Also got to go to the Leiper's Fork Chili-Cook Off, an autumn tradition and the unofficial start to my own chili season. I'll be making some tomorrow.

Here's to fall!

the more things change...

This weekend I went back to visit my alma mater, Carson-Newman College. It was homecoming weekend and I hadn't seen the school in 4 or 5 years and was curious to see how it has changed. So Mary Ann (my fellow alum and current roommate) and I made the 45 minute trek from Knoxville to Jefferson City, TN (where people drove tractors around campus, as a legitimate mode of transportation).

My studio

The highlight and real reason for the trip was visiting the Art Building, my home for 4 years, the sort of place that has seen so many events and people that it has its own personality. I love that building; every corner and door and desk tells a story.

The canvas where I sealed the shrink wrap when matting artwork. Hasn't been replaced in who knows how many years.

Shockingly, nothing has changed in the art building since I graduated 7 years ago. Its like a time capsule of 2002. The art my friends did still hangs in the halls. The sinks are still splattered with paint. The drawing class is still drawing skulls and models sitting (fully clothed, it is a Baptist college) in the worn, torn leather chair.

sink

new students, same sketches

At first I was excited to see everything just the way it was. But as I spent some time in the building and on campus I realized that while the building and decor is just the same, I am not. I had a wonderful time in college, and it definitely shaped and changed me. But I'm not there anymore. I have had adventures and experiences since college that have also changed me. I have made friends who know nothing of the life I had at Carson-Newman, but who I share life with now.

Where I learned how to make frames and fell in love with tools.

Its fun to travel back in time and revisit times that were happy and fun. But this weekend was a reminder not to dwell in those old times and forget about my life happening right now. I don't want my life to look the same as it did 7 or 10 years ago, and I don't ever want to think that the best times of life are in my past. There is joy in my past but there is also joy in my future.

Maybe the more things stay the same, the more they change...or at least they make you appreciate change!

Past meets present...Thomas Nelson box in the art department!