Reflections on autumn warm the heart

"There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;/ We must rise and follow her,/ When from every hill of flame/ She calls and calls each vagabond by name." - from “A Vagabond Song” by Bliss Carman

Ah, to ride in a tinker's cart through the hills and dales of another time, and stop for the night in a gypsy camp in autumn with russet leaves lit by a bonfire against a harvest moon of beaten gold. But I have my little fireplace from Sears to warm my evenings; at last, after the torpid, slow-motion haze of summer, I can turn it on again.

The sun on my art table in the backyard has shifted, and now I must place my paintings in front of the bigger oil burner in the man cave to dry them. Mermaids, sea horses and boardwalk scenes have given way to Indian corn, sugar maple trees and barns; aqua blues and pinks to burnt sienna, gamboge and Turner's yellow.

I love to paint stalks of corn, but in summer or in fall, I paint the ears already shucked. They're prettier that way with the jewel-like kernels, oranges, reds, yellows and even purples glistening against the crisp cerulean blue sky. My husband Jeff can't understand it, but I am not a plein air painter and do not mind abandoning realism in my myopic world of a paint-spattered dining room table, the leaves of which are stuck together with years of paint, carried down to Milton on a Two Guys truck.

I remember Halloween in the Milton of my childhood. It was safe then for children to walk the streets unaccompanied by parents (at least my parents let me do it). My grandmother would usually sew me a costume to my detailed specifications, whatever my imagination dictated. The best trick-or-treat haul I ever had was someone who was energetic enough to bake little pumpkin pies with candles in the middle that lit up our faces in the night.

However, I had figured out that if I wanted candy or quarters I could dress up anytime and knock on neighbors' doors. My mother had told me not to be a pest, but early on I decided not to follow this advice, as I did with most of "the harsh wisdom of Marguerite." She used to play a tune in her classroom around Thanksgiving with the lyrics, "There's a big fat turkey on Grandpa's farm who thinks he's very gay. He'll sing his song a different way upon Thanksgiving Day!"

The walls of her classroom were lined with cut-out pictures of seasonal events from the Sunday bulletin pasted on construction paper, and on the blackboard she had created a chalk drawing of a witch with warts on her nose, stirring a cauldron and wearing a witch's hat with a buckle. I was mesmerized by this, and it influenced some of my later art, I think. It was featured in a 1958 yearbook of her second-grade class. There she sits with her legs crossed, wearing one of her pleated skirts and spectator high heels. I sit on the other side of the kneeling children half asleep, dreaming of faraway lands I suppose.

The yearbook fell apart and I threw it away, but I wish now that I had kept it, for I loved that blackboard Halloween creation of hers. I could have pasted it on cardboard lined with the ball fringe she glued to lamps.

Having children of your own is a great way to rekindle Halloween, hayrides and visits to pumpkin patches. Autumn is like the Sunday before the Monday of seasons, which of course is winter. "All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin," is the old thanksgiving hymn, the words like the glinting, cut-down cornstalks in a late-October field. I created a painting of such a scene once, called "Slim Pickins," hoping to catch the shiny stalks and brown-striped field. In “Slim Pickins,” a little mouse looks for seeds to store before the cold winter winds come, like an artist preparing for a Christmas craft show.

Another season and a different color story are around the corner, but for now, orange is the spice of life in the pumpkin pie.