peace and light

IT’S HARD to get into the holiday spirit in these uncertain times. Last night, Juan and I attended Atlanta’s lighting of Macy’s Great Tree to try to nudge ourselves into the season. I’m not sure it worked so well. Soon after we got there we saw a brutish police officer hold a guy by his coat in front of him and manhandle him through, and out of the crowd. Everyone looked stunned and I heard nothing said about it. So strange. I wonder what the guy did, who he was and whether he was a victim of racial profiling. 

THIS HAPPENED before the festivities started. And this was on a night when all the local news reports were highlighting the warning from the hacker group called Anonymous that there could be a terrorist attack at a big wrestling event downtown. There was also a football game downtown with tightened security. The Christmas tree lighting event we attended was on the other side of the city and also attracted a large crowd.

P is for P E A C E in this beaded letter.

ONE HAS TO wonder whether all this fear and hysteria (nothing happened at any of the events) is warranted. It is certainly no wonder that everyone is on edge worldwide after the worst terror attack in French history, the Russian airliner that was exploded with a terrorist’s bomb, a double-suicide bombing in Lebanon, and a series of other deadly strikes that are happening one after the other on a weekly basis.

An evergreen wreath has long been a symbol of renewal and everlasting life.

THIS PAST Thursday (November 19th), Pope Francis said “Christmas festivities will seem empty in a world which has chosen ‘war and hate.’” In his sermon, he said “Christmas is approaching: there will be lights, parties, Christmas trees and nativity scenes . . . it’s all a charade. The world continues to go to war. The world has not chosen a peaceful path.” This sermon signaled the start of the holiday season at the Vatican, where a giant Christmas tree was unveiled. 

I’VE ONLY BEEN to the City of Light (Paris) one time in my life. It was a much different world back in 1979, when I visited. I was much younger, more optimistic and full of excitement for the life ahead of me. Not that life has been bad at all—it hasn’t. It just that the human race hasn’t evolved as much as I would have hoped and our effect on our own environment has exponentially grown in such a way that our future is at peril, even without war and hate.

Shiny baubles always brighten the winter holidays.

THE TABLEAU I’ve set for this post is symbolic of the peace, hope and love that I’ve always thought the holiday season brings to all of us, no matter how we celebrate the season. The Eiffel Tower, the symbol of Paris (the City of Light) and a symbol for all the world, is laid with an evergreen wreath to mourn the innocent lives lost to terrorism. The lights at the base represent a gathering of lights from around the world. The banner with the letters forming the word PEACE is prominent in the background. And the presence of glittery baubles in the scene all point to a pause for HOPE that our country and humankind will do right by each other. But none of this will ever truly happen without the LOVE we share through something beyond any of our tiny marks on the world.

GOD is LOVE, no matter what religion is represented. Terrorism is not a religion—it is hate. This holiday season, more than ever, is a time for us to renew our spirits and to find our way forward. This holiday is celebrated worldwide, so now, maybe for once, we can find the grace and humility in understanding that we’re all in this together. Nothing can squander our better selves when we remind ourselves of that.

War of the Gods:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/8578368

©2015 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland

valentine tree of hearts

A FAR CRY from making lackluster cakes in my childhood neighbor's Easy-Bake Oven, the chemistry of seeing flour and sugar and other ingredients morph into a baked confection was our first exercise in creating for ourselves what our mothers and grandmothers so deftly concocted with expert confidence. There is nothing else like cookies, cakes and pies. Sometimes, I wonder if we shouldn't just have dessert first, instead of saving room for it as an afterthought. It's no wonder Valentine's day has become a day to give sweets to loved ones.

MY MOTHER,  a consummate homemaker, was seemingly always in the kitchen cooking, canning something from the garden, or washing dishes. She always preferred to make cakes and pies over cookies. A good Southerner wasn't worth their salt if they couldn't bake a decent cake or lighter-than-air biscuits. It's not that way anymore. I think she liked to bake cakes best because of their scene-stealing grandiosity. Biscuits with butter and homemade preserves or with peppery milk gravy are another story altogether. Maybe growing up surrounded by cakes is the reason I obsessively collect cake plates, just as sweet memories of the holidays drive collecting the ornaments which are the raw material for this blog. Growing up in the American South, there were always cake walks, birthday cakes, fruitcakes, and even pancakes and potato cakes. This would sometimes coalesce across the community with fundraiser bake sales full of homemade goodness. Who could resist contributing to a cause that way?

EVERY YEAR  at Christmastime, I remember going out to the back porch to drive nails into the eyes of a fresh coconut, drain the milk into a glass, and crack the shell with a hammer. I would bring it to mother in the kitchen and we would peel off the thin outer layer of the slightly sweet meat. She would grate the coconut, toss it with confectioners sugar and press it into the the icing of the tallest layered cake she could make that would stand upright, even if it was held together inside with toothpicks. It was always quite a sweet spectacle and was the first thing everyone in the family would devour from a counter laden with other treats like pecan pies, a wine-soaked fruitcake, date-nut rolls, and even a competing German-chocolate cake. Nothing else seemed to compare to that stately white beauty layered and dressed in fresh coconut. It was mouth-watering deliciousness.

A VALENTINE TREE  (above) began with the idea for a tree full of hearts of one sort or another. An Easy-Bake light bulb went off and cookies came to mind. Immediately, I thought of my friends Brandon and John and their venture in becoming professional bakers. They agreed to collaborate with me by baking the cookies along with my initiation to the art of decorating them. We decorated the cookies they baked with colored icing, nonpareils and several types of brightly-colored sugars. The result of our combined creative efforts hang on the tree created from a tree branch painted white and glued at the tips with vintage paper leaves — all directing their attention with curve of the branch. I wanted the tree to match the ethereal and magical fairy-dust quality of Bear Maker Bakery cookies, along with the absolute exuberance and passion Brandon and John show in their baking efforts.

THEY TOO discovered baking in their respective childhood Easy-Bake Ovens, and they never forgot the power of a homemade confection. After they found each other, they ventured out on a limb together with a dream and a goal of making the most delicious cookies possible. While growing their passion for baking into a full-time creative endeavor, they jointly set out (even with separate childhood memories of providing treats for their families and friends) to create cookies "too beautiful to eat," but at the same time delicious enough to make resistance futile! It's not often that decorated cookies taste as good as they look. Labored over in their spare hours with love and care, their attention to flavor and texture along with a keen sense of visual detail has begun paying off. Like a fairy sighting, if you blink, their cookies might disappear. Even in reminding yourself of a growing waistline, if you are to truly enjoy any treat for what it is, both Brandon and John understand that sweetness and goodness in baking always shoot straight for the heart.

CHILDHOOD experimentation with Easy-Bake Ovens may have served as a starting point, but my friends at Bear Maker Bakery have gone way beyond those formative days to perfect their craft by coming up with unexpected ways to combine the right ingredients in making something that is beyond the ordinary. They haven't reached the point of quitting their day jobs either, so it is truly a labor of love [like The Decorated Tree (of life)]. All it takes is a loving tenacity of spirit to begin to realize the sweetest dreams.

TREE OF HEARTS | This Valentine cookie tree (above), made from a painted branch with handmade vintage paper leaves is decorated with cookies (above, right) made in collaboration with Bear Maker Bakery. The Valentine candy boxes by Johanna Parker and "Be Mine Cat Boy" original design spun cotton figure by Crystal Hanehan (left) are from Bayberry Cove (he was hand spun using techniques similar to those of the early German artisans who created cotton ornaments for Christmas). The German glass glitter lovebird ornaments perched in the branch are from Pottery Barn. The ceramic urn holding the branch is from Smith and Hawken. The cake plate from my collection is the Martha Stewart Limited Edition 2009 Cake Plate from Macy's. A cardboard heart box from Michaels is painted chartreuse and sits behind a silver-beaded pocket holding a heart love token (from Bombay Duck London) at the base of the tree. 

COOKIE COLLABORATION | (Right) Brandon Tidwell (top, left and middle) and John Price (top left, top right, and bottom left) from Bear Maker Bakery were gracious (and elfin) enough to put their hearts into cookies for the tree, along with giving me lessons on decorating them (that's me, bottom right, grinning with childlike glee).
 
©2010 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, collecting and styling by Darryl Moland, tree photographed by Harold Daniels Studio / assisted by Shawn May, cookie making collage photos by Darryl Moland and Brandon Tidwell

seeds of the trees

C O N I F E R S   are by definition cone bearers. The seed-bearing "fruit" of pines, firs, cypress and yew (according to some) is the inspiration for some of the first molded glass ornaments made in Germany. Pinecones were believed to be symbols of motherhood and fertility, so were given to brides and grooms to hang on their first holiday tree together. As for my increasingly fertile ornament collection, if I were organized enough to have it catalogued, I'm sure the largest bulk of it is glass cones in as many shapes and sizes as you can imagine. Some are pictured (at right and below) and others are pictured on a tree in a previous post.

A S   P I N E C O N E S   are naturally beautiful by themselves and dry wonderfully, they are brought inside used as decor (or kindling) in many homes. Painted, glittered and coaxed into wreaths, garlands and even boutonnieres, they have endless decorative appeal. The Southern Longleaf Pine is the official tree of the state of Alabama where I was raised. There, in my earlier years, I've mowed over pinecones when cutting the grass or painfully stepped on them when running around barefoot in the summer. Even so, I've always had an affinity for their natural beauty. And attracted to glittery things early on, I remember a ribboned and glittered pinecone doorknob hanger (not unlike this one) my mother would hang on the inside knob of the front door every holiday season.

B O T A N I C A L L Y,  conifers are non-flowering plants (gymnosperms). Pollinated by the wind, their seeds are not enclosed within a fruit or seed pod. It wasn't until later in the evolution of plants that flowering trees (angiosperms) evolved. Female cones open up to catch the pollen from male cones. The usually flat, papery seeds that develop  fall out of the open cone when it matures and dries out. The cones can be soft and small, like juniper "berries" or as large as ten to twenty inches long such as those of the Sugar Pine.

L A S T   W E E K, Jon surprised me with a new book named Lives of the Trees. Diana Wells, the author has written An Uncommon History of 100 trees. You can listen to an NPR interview with the author here. The publisher (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill) states: 

"as she investigates the names and meanings of trees, telling their legends and lore, she reminds us of just how innately bound we are to these protectors of our planet. Since the human race began, we have depended on them for food, shade, shelter and fuel, not to mention furniture, musical instruments, medicine, utensils and more.

Wells has a remarkable ability to dig up the curious and the captivating: At one time, a worm found in a hazelnut prognosticated ill fortune. Rowan trees were planted in churchyards to prevent the dead from rising from their graves. Greek arrows were soaked in deadly yew, and Shakespeare's witches in Macbeth used Gall of goat and slips of Yew to make their lethal brew. One bristlecone pine, at about 4,700 years old, is thought to be the oldest living plant on earth. All this and more can be found in the [book's] beautifully illustrated pages (themselves born of birch bark)."

E N D L E S S L Y   fascinating and rich with lore and legend, it's hard to see running out of subject matter for The Decorated Tree (of Life)! The connection we all have to trees is as deeply-rooted in our collective psyche as the trees are to the ground on which we walk. The ritual of decorating them to celebrate almost any occasion is just as resonant, whether it be a Christmas tree; a bride's favor tree; or as I'm planning in time for February 14th, a Valentine cookie tree (look for it here).

CONE COMPOSITION | (Above, right): Easily the largest part of my ever-growing ornament collection is comprised of glass cones such as these. (From top to bottom), a silver and white cone from the Martha Stewart Collection (2009) for Macy's, an elongated bronze Republic of Czechoslovakia cone from Department 56, a chunky rounded bronze cone from the Martha Stewart Collection (2009) for Macy's, a green Czechoslovakian cone from Cost Plus World Market, and a Waterford Holiday Heirlooms cone. The cones are composed on a piece of tree bark Jon found while walking his dogs, which he saved for me to use as a photography prop. 

BOOK OF TREES | (Above, left): Lives of the Trees by Diana Wells is quite an interesting and rich reference for 100 types of trees, from the Acacia to the Yew. It is published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, a division of Workman Publishing. Three of the largest cones are Polish-made ornaments. The small green cone with a blown glass loop is from the Martha Stewart Collection (2007) for Macy's. Others are unidentified from my collection, both new and antique. All is contained in a live edge mango wood bowl from Target. 

©2010 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland