Dreaming at Dusk: a mosaic contest

Slow down a minute, my friend, and ponder with me in color...

Can you dream the colors of dusk? They are softer, subtler, blended. Shadows lengthen, casting fine shrouds of brown, midnight and velvet gray over all once sharp and defined. Ruby red fades to blush. The water shines silvering blue. A hush falls like feathers over fields and fowl.

Grand Budapest, embroidery, acorns

Between gathering neutrals, warmth glints in the last light. A flash of yellow-orange-red-purple, the dying of a perfectly ordinary day. But even that brilliance is hazy. Where does one color start and another begin? Night, so absolute, overcomes the protest of a myriad, graduated shades.

cathedral, Victoria Gertenbach's log cabin quilt, sofa, Three Kitchen Fairies' orange peel quilt

The colors of dusk are the colors of age. They are weathered by time, tested by wind, water and war. Yet we're drawn to them because of, not in spite of, their battered textures. All things glow against that pealing paint, that worn wood. The mottled company of many softened shades makes life more honest and real.

thread, columns, Pat Bravo's Carved quilt, plank table

At dusk nature cuts ties with the ordinary. Familiar shapes are transformed. Our minds, our future and the shades we contemplate make space for mystery. Purple and peach are the colors of sunsets - - - and of secrets, creativity and romance too.