Lantern Magic

On Sunday night Dec. 21st, we gathered in the local park with our lanterns to celebrate the return of the light.  At dusk, a lantern procession took place wandering the trails through the woods all the way to the duck pond where twenty floating lanterns awaited us. Some say more than 200 people came to join us to create a special and magical winter solstice evening.
We were so lucky that the weather collaborated with us for a dry evening!

Now it is time to pack up all the lanterns till the next time. They need to be put out of the way, their fragile surface tears easily and I have more than once poked a hole in them inadvertently. The big paper lanterns are hung on a wire below the ceiling in my studio, out of the way. Floating lanterns are not easy to store, they need to be left alone in a big space, which is not an option.  They are built with bamboo skewers inserted in an insulation foam base, the paper is glued on the bamboo sticks. By pulling out the sticks, the lantern remains intact, I thought of folding them but my friend Carole Reid had the brilliant idea of rolling them individually. Hourray, they take little space, are 100% safe and it's easy to do.

It has been a great project, my studio was the lantern making central for weeks, heaps of colourful tissue paper covered every inch of my tables, dozens of floating lanterns rested on every flat surface that could be found, everything was ready for the special event. I loved it, happy patterns and shapes everywhere in the anticipation of the lantern procession.

Now, it's gonna be nice to regain my space and get back to work on my last paintings.

Wishing you all a very happy and gentle holiday season and nothing short of the fulfillment of all your dreams in 2015.