Friday, July 25, 2008

Distlefink

This one is similar in form to the one my Dad painted on our house in Cripple Creek in the fifties:
 
 
... but the colors were more like this one:
 
 
... and with details and fru-fru adornments like this one:
 
 
The painting was probably eight or ten feet tall all together (bird plus perch plus heart ... no circle.)  There were also several hex signs:
 
          over the windows and doors.  I think the old German Amish and Mennonite Pennsylvania farmers thought these signs gave some kind of protection to the occupants if each wall opening was "hexed," kind of like the south-western Indian custom of paiting blue all around your windows and doors because evil spirits won't cross water, and will be fooled by the blue into thinking there's a river around all your house's openings.
 
Plus, it looks cool.
 
My folks knew all the lore about what the details of the hex signs supposedly meant in terms of protecting you ... how many legs on the "flower", what colors, all the little adornments, etc.  I do not.

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