Paine Hall

One week when my brother and I were at Silver Bay as kids, we discovered that the lawn in front of Paine Hall was full of large 4-leaf clovers!  We collected as many as we could find and pressed them in an album.  Later, when I was an EMP, I discovered that the 4-leaf clovers continue there.  I picked some and laminated them to give to friends - a little piece of pocket-sized luck.

I've stayed in this building both as a guest and as staff.  Paine Hall is full of odd twists and turns, hidden stairs, and strangely shaped rooms.  Of course it's also rumored to be haunted, but the only strange noises I ever heard were raccoons courting in the woods outside my window the summer I had a room on the top floor under the eves.  However, I do believe this building is directly responsible for the dreams that I sometimes have of exploring old buildings, finding hidden doorways, and ending up in musty attics.  These dreams started as a child, but once in a while they come back to remind me that there is mystery in the world, and I've always loved exploring old houses and abandoned places, as well as wilderness.   

Another year, while I was on the staff, the local feral cat had kittens under the porch of the Paine Hall rotunda, a space that was probably once a courtyard but which has been enclosed by windows to make a small indoor patio.  Some of us would retrieve the unclaimed bag lunches from the Front Desk and feed the meat and cheese to the kittens at the end of the day.  I'm sure there are similar stories for every building on the Silver Bay campus!

The blue cottons are painted and over-dyed in an attempt to get the right colors for the house.  The sky is a piece of upholstery fabric that was the right color and reminiscent of the old fashioned wallpaper and curtains that used to hang here, and there's a touch of blue sateen peeking through as well.  Some of the background foliage is hand-dyed too.  With all the little angles and lines, this small quilt was rather time-consuming, but it finally seems to have come together.  

close-up of the house