Thursday, December 4, 2008

Away in a Manger

One of my favorite things to display each Christmas is this wooden Nativity set that I painted almost 30 years ago. I was taking a Folk Art class at Barbara's Tole Shoppe in Little Rock, and one of our projects was this 13-piece set.

I painted several of these sets over the years. After Larry gave me a band saw for my birthday one year, I started cutting my own pieces. Later a friend in Texarkana introduced me to Mr. Burress, who cut wood for me, and after Laura and I opened Rose Hill Emporium, I taught classes on this Nativity project.

My boys always enjoyed rearranging the pieces on the display board. I love looking back at this picture of the boys setting out Santa's milk and cookies next to the Nativity. Notice that Santa rated a Razorback cup for his milk.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What I remember about that nativity set is that it always sat on the coffee table, which doubled as a footrest, and every time someone put their feet on the coffee table all those wooden people fell down (except baby Jesus; he had a low center of gravity).

Anonymous said...

A band saw? And you know how to use it? You are so talented. I'm really inspired by you.

((to above comment...is that you Hunter in CO? the best emcee for CCC at U of A ever in the history of the world?? hi!))

Mar Mar said...

I put my nativity you gave me out today. It's on my continent. (Jimmy Woodell says I have an island and a continent. The continent is the counter with the stovetop on it.) I sure didn't realize it had been 30 years since you gave it to me.

KBeau said...

Probably not 30 years since I gave that one to you, but almost 30 years since I painted the first one.