Oh Tannenbomb!

Another memory jogged. This ceramic Christmas tree recently came into my possession and at first I was quite taken by its basic hideousness. Then it started to grow on me, as trees do, and I’ve even gone so far as to go on-line to buy replacements for the lost “bulbs” (little bulb-shaped pieces of plastic--$9.95 for a bag of 100…eek). It’s now sitting in the basement window with a timer attached to light up its innards 5:00 to midnight. I’m now applying the words “funky” and “kewl” to it instead of “hideous” because, well, it’s mine and I need an excuse, I guess, to put it on display, embarrassment be damned.

I can remember my mother’s friends taking up ceramics as a hobby in the 40’s and 50’s. Well, by “ceramics” I don’t mean original sculptures. I mean the purchase of basic bisque shapes, mostly cute animals and artsy-fartsy things, and then the painting and firing of the results. And voila! fairly cheap and almost instant gifts! My own mother, even after she started dumping her stuff at an elderly age (I’m feeling the same urge myself these days), placed value, and kept, two small semi-Asian ceramic figurines given to her by a friend way back in the dimness of my own memory. In shades of green I guess they appealed to some vestige of hopeful serenity in my mother’s heart.

In those distant days the ultimate project seemed to be these very trees and it was usually the culmination of many other projects before any home grown hobbyist felt confident to take it on. I don’t think my mother ever did one but I do remember seeing some in the homes of her friends and/or my own friend’s living rooms in Decembers long past. According to Mr. Google a lot of the trees manufactured in the 60’s included a music box and, sure enough, there is a non-functional one in mine, which is clumsily dated 1965, obviously by the person who painted it.

When I was in college I took a course in ceramic sculpture and, of course, that put me on the path of pooh-poohing anything store-bought and painted. Snobbery aside, I still think I’m right. These tree “sculptures” are machine-made in multiples of thousands and, according to my inadvertent research (in buying those bulbs); it’s a hobby still rampant in the burbs of America. There are hundreds of them listed on e-bay and, distressingly, people actually collect them! I really don’t think I have better taste than most people (after all, I do have this tree on display) but I continue to be thrilled by a Kandinsky here or a Klee there…and this fellow Picasso still floats my boat. Yeah, I know, your 7-year old daughter can do that; and probably your 3-year old monkey. But, hey, you’re an idiot.