Evening Singers

Evening Singers, 2026

Evening Singers, 2021

Just when we think we’ve run out of time, we realize there is just enough time for (at least) one more song. In the final hours of August we sing an exuberant welcome to our beloved Evening Singers. There are those who sing the evening that comes after each day, and those who sing the evening of every passing year. There are those who sing the evening of a single life spent on earth, and those who sing the evening of an entire age of history. Evening singers prepare us for the dark parts of any cycle to arrive.

“In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.”

When Bertolt Brecht wrote this he used “dark” as a synonym for “hard.” But we know dark can be beautiful and generative, and the darkness calls for different songs than the light does. We at the Time Travelers Union know that time is exalted by song. Evening singers know how to say hello and goodbye at the same time.

About the creative process:

We brought back this crow and fireflies from a previous attempt in our 2021 calendar of small spells. Unlike many of the images in this year’s calendar, we didn’t change this one much—we’re just a few years farther along in understanding how to render the deep rich darkness of a painting in a way that will show up well when printed. Jo here—gouache is a tricksy medium, capable of watercolor luminescence, oil-like fluidity, and acrylic opacity. I learn more each year about how to keep a painting alive and I am glad about the blue-dark that I captured in this year’s Evening Singers. I do wish the fireflies were a little brighter though, tbh. Also the 2021 crow has a vibe that I could not recreate. Finally, I just walked outside in the late August evening and heard all the righteous evening singers—cicadas, crickets, tree frogs—their songs are sawing through the air, a tribute to the end of August.