GETTING INTO THE SPIRIT OF IT ALL.....
I have been to two wonderful Christmas events last week that I planned to write about in my "view". However, I had some camera issues (story of my life!!!), so I am relying on the kindness of friends to get some photos to me.
In the meantime, I would like to share with you parts of one of my collection of snow paintings and prints.
I bring these out in December and keep them out until Valentine's Day.
It was not my original idea to start collecting these. My late friend, Judy Knowles, had started purchasing them, and I was quite taken with her collection. (I always like to give credit any time I use someone else's idea.)
Naturally, working at Stars over the years, I have managed to find some really nice ones and at good prices too.
The first one I bought is my favorite. It is an unframed oil painting and I can almost feel myself being a part of the scene. I have no rules about collecting these--they can be quite primitive, copies of oil paintings, paint-by-numbers, framed, non-framed....I am not particular--I just have to like them. Most are purchased for under $30.
I always prop them all together on the wide shelf below my front window, under the faux Christmas trees I use every year.
I would like to figure out a more pleasing way to display them, but haven't come up with that yet. As always, with collections, they look good clustered all together
My Stars partners, Darwin and Brent, know of a collector in Oregon who collects snow paintings with the old sparkled mica added. I have never even seen one of these in my searches. My good friend, Joanna Kreitzberg, bought some of Judy Knowles paintings at the estate sale after her passing, thus starting her own collection. I'm sure there are other collectors out there that I do not know about.
Most of my favorite Christmas decorations are handmade--either purchased by me or given to me over the years. I like to think they carry the spirit of the artisan with them. I share with you this wonderful excerpt from a D. H. Lawrence poem that my good friend, Don Floren, turned me on to.....
"Things men have made with wakened hands, and put soft life into are awake through years with transferred touch,
And go on glowing for long years.
And for this reason, some old things are lovely,
warm still with the life of forgotten men (and I include women also .G.)who made them.
Signing off.....
Gayle@starsantique.com
