Let's start with the good news. Winter Village Ornaments will be exhibiting at Market Square Shows in Lebanon, PA, a juried wholesale craft trade show for unique artisan products. The show is only two weeks away, so I'm moving at warp speed to get ready.
I have a 10' x 10' booth, and I'm building a similar display to what I use at the Winter Village: an organized grid of ornaments, where the details emerge as you approach.
But there's one important upgrade: it all needs to fit in my pickup, in one load...and I don't have one of those monster trucks like you see on I-78.
But no worries. This display fits neatly in a 71" x 40" x 30" cube, perfectly between the wheel wells of my little truck.
It's still in progress, but you can get the idea. The display's design and construction are workmanlike and practical (and yes, I deconstructed my other displays to make the carcass for this one), but all the seams are hidden, and it can be assembled by one person in an hour.
With the display almost finished, I'm focusing on some of the other little details, like marketing materials and tags for the ornaments. The video below is an early iteration of the tag design, but you can get a sense of the process. The tags will sit like little bows on top of the artwork.
So that's the good news, but what of the complicated heavens?
Pennsylvania Dutch art is a crossroads of religious belief and the agricultural almanac. It's grounded in faith that the universe is ordered and sacred despite having a Creator who might act impulsively.
Logically, that's a conflict, but I don't think it matters. There's an implicit kindness in Pennsylvania Folk Art that allows people to resolve this conflict internally. I love that thought.
In my ornaments, you'll see a balance of features. There are bold cut-outs that represent the solid, unchanging ingredients of belief and small software signatures, like hatches, line-types, and arrays, that represent the elements...or the weather... or the ephemeral-- the things that change. A finished ornament design has a good balance between these features.
I don't know if my customers think about it, but that's what all this artwork is about.
And though personal beliefs are difficult to articulate, my customers do tell me about their beliefs in the context of these ornaments. So I know that people from vastly different perspectives see the same things in these designs.
Most often, what they see is an opportunity to buy little gifts for the people they care about. I love that.
I hope to see you at the Market Square Craft Show on February 26, 27. I'll be at booth 101 in the West Hall.
Cheers-- Matt Laska