Folksy and Festive Christmas Trees
Whether it’s about making art or making do, folk art Christmas trees turn unconventional materials into holiday delights.
For many of us, holidays and folk art go hand in hand. Handmade decorations (or at least a handmade look) evoke nostalgia, cherished memories, and beloved traditions. But “traditional” doesn’t have to mean “conventional,” and a look at a few folk art Christmas trees confirms that.
An enormous 81-inch-tall iron candelabra shaped like a Christmas tree was a hit at a recent sale by Austin Auction Gallery, where it more than doubled its $1,200 estimate to sell for $4,445. The tree consists of rotating tiers with candle arms attached, and its colorful painted decorations illustrate the gifts of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” from the partridge-and-pear finial at the top to the twelve drummers drumming around the bottom tier. The description warned that the 20th-century tree showed signs of wear, with wobbling tiers, flaking paint, and wax drips on the candle cups, but, based on the tree’s sale price, these supposed flaws only add to the charm.
Some folk art trees have more abstract designs. If you looked at the piece of folk art made from a Victorian weathervane and a coiled metal strap that sold for $37 at Atlee Raber Auctions, could you tell it’s a Christmas tree? The metal strap, coiled into a cone shape, has perforations where ornaments can hang. The original iron arrow with a ruby red glass pane with a painted star already gives it a festive touch.
There are Christmas stockings, and the Dutch tradition of leaving out wooden shoes for St. Nicholas to fill with treats is well known. So a Christmas tree made of shoe molds may not be that strange. A folk art sculpture of a Christmas tree assembled from vintage cobbler’s shoe molds sold for $325 at Rivich Auctions. It may not look very festive in plain brown wood, but imagine tinsel or garlands draped around the toes.
Most folk artists are unknown, but some have been recognized by name. Mary T. Smith (1904-1995) is one of them. Smith was born in Mississippi to Black sharecroppers and, because of a hearing impairment, had little formal education. She loved drawing as a child, and, when she was in her thirties, began painting on pieces of corrugated tin she salvaged from a garbage dump. A set of two of her paintings of Christmas trees sold at a Slotin Folk Art auction for $2,750.
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