Beacons beyond just a barn

Rural Beacon, today's 5 x 7 #watercolor

Why my fascination with barns, especially old ones?
I don't know where that comes from, except they're picturesque. 
But they always grab my attention, and that of many other artists as well. It's not from close personal contact or memories, because I grew up in the city. Still, I've lived a while in rural areas, and spent a summer long ago as part of a crew painting them in Iowa. Oh, the stories.
There's something else too...beyond the architecture with unlimited variations all over the country. They're beacons beyond just wood and metal and paint, symbols and stories of hard work, of rural life and death, of building and decay.
In this holiday season, they're more than that too, culminating in celebration of the birth of a child long ago, in a kind of barn, not much more than a shed really.