Thursday, October 26, 2006

Illustration Friday "Ghost?"





This week's theme for "Illustration Friday" was Ghost. Here is a little history on Halloween F.Y. I.-
Halloween- Originated as a Celtic Harvest Fest-It is the evening before "All Saints Day" - a Christian religious holiday. As was typical, the church holidays were set at the same time as pagan holidays with hopes the people would abandon their rituals. Instead- a melding of the two happened and today we have both religious and pagan roots in holiday traditions. A night where the spiritual world and the physical world are intertwined.
Black Cats- originally seen as "good luck" when a black cat cross your path , the Church associated them with Witches and through that association, the stigma changed to "bad luck"
Jack-o-lanterns- Comes from an Irish Folktale where after losing a deal with the devil- A not so clever farmer ends up becoming "Jack of the Lantern" and wanders the earth with a candle lit inside of a turnip."

Most of our Halloween tradition came with the immigrants from Ireland in the 1800's. And much of it was melted together in America and then adopted out to other countries- such as Canada, UK and Australia as a 20th century "pop culture" tradition!
(from Wikipedia.com)

9 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:31 PM

    this is a wonderful applique. i love especially, the lady answering the door.

    great job!

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  2. I think this is great. It is very creative. I wish I could do some work like this, it looks like it was fun to make.

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  3. Anonymous10:18 PM

    Julia it is so wonderful!!! I have to tell you once againand I am being honest. It is your best work! Love it. Love the kid looking in his pail. Love his outfit! Love the ghost and the hills and the moon! I love everything!

    Such Fun!

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  4. Anonymous12:25 AM

    Very cool! Did you stitch that? And thanks for the background on Halloween. So true that they switched around all the cool old stuff... especially with reference to making women the baddies... =(

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  5. Great job, Julia! I love the textures and colors and the children are adorable.

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  6. I like the simplicity of this. :-)

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