fire and ice

IN DESIGNING my first tree, I wanted it to evoke one of those beautiful scenes of tall, slim, snow-covered, and downswept evergreen trees seen in an alpine setting, hence the name The Alpine Feather Tree. Since I also love the tension created between unexpected or even opposing elements in design, when planning the first decorations for this tree, I immediately thought of the phrase "fire and ice." And since this was a new take on an old feather tree tradition, both in style and shape, I wanted freshly-colored baubles that were bright, but not glitzy, with only an allusion to the beautiful, but sometimes stodgy Victorian tradition of feather trees. So I set about crafting my own set of ornaments. I wanted to keep it simple and doable. Painting your own custom-colored ornaments requires a lot of trial, error and literal elbow grease (when shaking the ornaments to coat the insides with colored paints). But as always, there is a method to my madness in getting just the right look I want.

The condensed magazine 

version available on 

newsstands everywhere.

My tree is on page 30 of 

both editions
 (above and below).

THIS "FIRE AND ICE" decorated tree is the result. Cool "snow-tipped" branches and pine cones, accented with tin icicles are contrasted with hot colored baubles—bright pink and oranges. The metal star atop the tree and the icicles are purposefully traditional to give a nod to the Victorian tradition. This tree (above) makes its decorated debut in Matthew Mead's Christmas All Through the House this holiday season as a page in a story titled "Good Tidings." Matthew and I collaborated on this story remotely and matched up the color-scheme and such. My tree is included in both the Amazon.com "bookazine" (below) and a condensed magazine version (right—available at newsstands everywhere this season). Although the Amazon version has many more pages of ideas, why not buy both versions and give one to a friend?

The bookazine version is available at Amazon.com

YES, VIRGINIA, I know there is a Santa Claus and he isn't supposed to appear until the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but my design for the tree and the craftsman’s fine handiwork were united early this year to create this museum-quality heirloom. Since it takes time to meticulously handcraft these trees from real goose feathers, it's a good idea to order yours early to beat the holiday rush. Hometraditions is offering the tree on their website. Dennis Bauer in Ohio, one of the best-known craftsmen stateside to uphold the German tradition of the feather tree, makes each one by hand as they are ordered. You can even customize them slightly with a different trunk color or maybe even a smaller size if you want (just ask when you order). I whitewashed the trunk of this original version of the tree to give the trunk an icy look—specific directions for that are on the Hometraditions website. The decorations seen in this post are not included when you order the tree, but I'm including information below on how to craft your own from clear glass baubles and pine cones in any color scheme you prefer.

I'VE ALWAYS THOUGHT that the star atop a holiday tree was the perfect accent. Forget bows, angels or any other sort of topper. Give me a fine star to hand down as an heirloom any day of the year. This silver-plated star was found after a long search for the perfect size and form (on Ebay). I've found ornaments on Ebay that have been part of an estate and even plenty of newer items—oftentimes it's a rich resource for the unusual. It's important to find a topper that fits your tree proportionally as it will become the focal culmination of all of the joy found underneath it.



CLEAR GLASS ornaments in three sizes were swirled inside with high gloss, multi-surface acrylic craft paint thinned ever-so-slightly from the vibrating three-color ingredient list of amaranth, habanero, and marmalade (from Martha Stewart Crafts) at Michaels. Some of the baubles were left clear to give the tree more sparkle.

UNOPENED PINE CONES found under a stand of favorite pine trees I've discovered were gathered while they were green and allowed to dry—becoming a natural brown. Then I added a white grosgrain ribbon tied into a loop and hot glued to the top of the cone. Glue and coarse white mica glitter were added to give them the look of being capped by a freshly-fallen snow.

VICTORIAN TINSEL or "tin-twist icicles" were ordered online and became the finishing touch on the tree as they hang precariously from the tips. You could also use glass icicles for a similar effect. I always prefer to have a variety of ornament sizes and shapes on a tree. And I use the wise "rule of three" in almost everything I do (three sizes, three vibrating colors, and three shapes).

ALTHOUGH I'VE always thought it gauche to rush the season too much, when you're writing and producing a blog that centers around the holidays, it's necessary that planning has to happen months before—especially if you're going to be included in a magazine that hits the newsstands in October or get a new tree on the market before the holiday season. It's not unusual anymore to see Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas wares for sale all-at-once in the stores starting in October. So what are you doing to do?

YOU MIGHT AS WELL join in the merriment of the holiday season that starts in October every year now and gracefully accept that the commercial aspects of the season are not going away. The characters of Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas fell in love with Christmas, no? Even though none of us are stuck in Halloweenland (which rivals the retail space that Christmas gets), just consider it a positive and enjoy the special moments created with friends and family around your decorated tree, whatever the season!

©2013 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

tree design, photography and styling by Darryl Moland; handcrafted tree by Dennis Bauer; for Hometraditions.com; Matthew Mead's Christmas All Through the House (cover and spread) published by Time Home Entertainment/Oxmoor House.

southern cool

More than any other part of America, the South stands apart...Thousands of Northerners and foreigners have migrated to it...but Southerners they will not become. For this is still a place where you must have either been born or have 'people' there, to feel it is your native ground. "Natives will tell you this. They are proud to be Americans, but they are also proud to be Virginians, South Carolinians, Tennesseeans, Mississippians and Texans. But they are conscious of another loyalty too, one that transcends the usual ties of national patriotism and state pride. It is a loyalty to a place where habits are strong and memories are long. If those memories could speak, they would tell stories of a region powerfully shaped by its history and determined to pass it on to future generations.

—Tim Jacobson, Heritage of the South

THE AMERICAN SOUTH has more than its share of stereotypes. Some are borne out of reality and some are complete misconceptions. One thing for sure is that the summer here is hot—especially the "dog days" of August and September. The thing that won’t surprise people is that Southerners know how to stay cool. We have things like iced tea, the breeze blowing from a fan or inland from the coast, or a cool and creamy slice of key lime pie. But the cool thing that most people might not know—unless they are Southerners themselves, or know one very well—is that people from the South are some of the most open and forgiving people in the world. The cool comes from an unpretentious and earthy live-and-let-live attitude.

OUT OF THAT attitude comes an openness to looking at things in an unstructured way that leaves our world ripe for innovation and creativity. A style-setting friend approached me about creating a tree for a new blog called Southern Exposures because he cited that a tree in August is unexpected, so I rose to the challenge. I present this tree, but make sure you visit the blog here. A talented writer is in cahoots with him and she has summed up the blog's focus as "a collection of artists, writers, photographers, chefs, and stylists living and working in the American South." Together, this stylist and writer are too modest to stake any personal claim because, as they say, their aim is to focus on the untapped and under-utilized talent in the American South. This tree evokes both the heat and the cool of our region and I was more than thrilled to oblige.



IT'S NO SECRET that a disproportionate number of game-changing writers, musicians, artists, chefs and other creative folk were born-and-raised here. William Faulkner, Truman Capote and Eudora Welty wrote with an unbridled and passionate turn of phrase. Ray Charles, Elvis and the band R.E.M. changed the very history and shape of music. Famous artists such as Jasper Johns, Romare Bearden and even self-taught folk artists such as Howard Finster all hail from the South. Masters of Southern cuisine such as Chef Paul Prudhomme, food writers such as Craig Claiborne and TV personalities such as Paula Deen are all world-renowned for their take on the food that made the South famous—not to be taken lightly, even if the food rarely spares any waist-slimming shortcuts.

I'D BE WILLING TO BET that all of these people (from the writers, to the artists. to the food experts) know that key lime pie is not green, but a pale creamy yellow. And I prefer mine with a pastry crust thank-you-very-much. Subtle distinctions like this are what set Southerners apart. We all know when somebody or something “ain’t from around here.” But the nice thing is that we’re willing and able to share the good stuff from our rich culture. It's definitely a place where you'll find an unfettered generosity of spirit.

POPULAR MOVIES set in the South such as To Kill a Mockingbird (based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee of the same name), The Color Purple (based on Alice Walker's novel of the same name), and currently, The Help (based on Kathryn Stockett's novel) only tell part of the Southern story. Popular TV shows such as The Andy Griffith Show, Designing Women, and True Blood capture how the perception of the South has changed over the years, but there's still more to be said. There has definitely been an opening in the veil covering Southern sensibility. More and more people are seeing how just how rich Southern culture can be—even if related in a hyper-real, over-the-top storyline as it is in True Blood.

MAGAZINES such as Southern Living (where I landed my first job out of college), Garden and Gun and The Oxford American are telling the Southern story on a regular basis in high-style from a consumer perspective and all the way through to a literary viewpoint. So there's no stopping the voice of the South. You might just raise an eyebrow or two in discovering just how rich life here can be.

WHILE THE REST of the world is losing its distinctiveness, it seems that the particular Southern vernacular is sittin’ down for a spell. No longer relegated to the trend du jour, the Southern way of doing things is finally becoming recognized for style as well as substance. Sure, the good ol’ boy attitude has held on white-knuckled, but even it has lost its grip. What’s left is Southern cool and I ain’t talking about lowering the temperature. It’s high time for the creative side of Southern culture to kick it up a notch!

THE NEW Southern Exposures blog might just be the way to do it. And I’m more than happy to be a small part of its beginning with the photos and ideas you see in this post. Make sure to visit their blog to see what they are doing and discover a lot of untapped talent along-the-way.

KEEPING IT COOL| (From top to bottom) This tree branch held in a wooden container painted with sunny stripes employs ribbons and freezable plastic ice cubes as a metaphor for Southern Cool. Of course there's real iced tea (house wine of the South) to complete the picture. The Tri-Vane fan keeps the breeze blowing. The key lime tart (yellow, not green to-be-sure) was lovingly made by my sweet companion Devin Borden. It is topped with real whipped cream and garnished with candied lime slices. Circa 1968 or so, my friend Ellen Shanks Padgett (left) with her mother Margie and sister Barbara are sporting color-coordinated cool on a gleaming sandy-white beach in Destin, Florida.

©2011 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

photography and styling by Darryl Moland,

key lime tart crafted by Devin Borden,

beach photo courtesy Ellen Shanks Padgett 

ADDENDUM 8/31/2011:

MUST-SEE MOVIE | Since I haven't seen this film yet, I am reposting the synopsis from the website. It looks like it might tell a visual story of the American South even better than Malick's Tree of Life: 

AWARDED for its visionary cinematography, General Orders No. 9 breaks from the constraints of the documentary form as it contemplates the signs of loss and change in the American South as potent metaphors of personal and collective destiny.

THE STUNNING culmination of over eleven years’ work from first time writer-director Robert Persons, General Orders No. 9 marries experimental filmmaking with an accessible, naturalist sensibility to tell the epic story of the clash between nature and man’s progress, and reaches a bittersweet reconciliation all its own.

TOLD ENTIRELY with images, poetry, and music, General Orders No. 9 is unlike any film you have ever seen. A story of maps, dreams, and prayers, it’s one last trip down the rabbit hole before it’s paved over. 

SEE THE TRAILER HERE

frozen memories

"If there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet . . . 
maybe we could understand something." —Federico Fellini

QUIETLY  IMAGINING  the feat of nature it takes to unite billions of singularly unique and delicate ice crystals to form a fresh blanket of snow is mind-boggling if you think about it. Memories are much the same. Thoughts guide you through the atmosphere, form together, and freeze into beautiful structures with which to blanket one's life. The transitory nature of memory is the attachment to our psyche, to something larger, to something enduring and resonant at our core—our very soul (God if you like). Snowflakes embody our attachment to nature. They literally and magically form from thin air—miraculously and mysteriously remembering how to align ice crystals into rare and beautiful structures.

The singular structure of a snowflake.

SNOWFLAKES  are only one of nature's many wonders. Some are completely symmetrical, some are columns of ice crystals, and some are their own unique shape, but their structures are astounding! It's no wonder a fresh snowfall has a magical quality. Wilson Bentley, who during a snowstorm on January 15, 1885, obtained the first photomicrographs ever taken of an ice crystal. He is credited with the oft-repeated phrase "no two snowflakes are alike." But still, they distinctly reveal nature's symmetry. A hundred years later, American physicist Kenneth Libbrecht would study and photograph snowflakes anew with much more sophisticated technology and give us hundreds of images such as the one you see here. It is as humbling as looking into the stars to see these snowflake images. They are published in a number of popular books.

FOR  THIS  to be created to make the proverbial White Christmas this past year was purely magical. Overnight, the world outside would be changed into a winter wonderland. The snow kept falling through Christmas day and night. I was fortunate enough to be with friends in a cabin in the mountains of north Georgia for the holiday surrounded by acres of pristine land. Mother Nature decorated the trees this time, not me. Being in the American South, a Christmas Day snowfall is literally a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. There hasn't been a Christmas Day snowfall like this since 1882. As I write this, Atlanta has been put to test with another snow that has shut down businesses for two days, going on three. We're just not prepared for such weather. I, for one, have relished the peace and quiet of another magical "holiday" and spent most of the time indoors this time since the roads are icy and my workplace is closed. Staying put and embracing the silence has been welcome after a busy holiday season.

MEMORIES  ARE CAPTURED  when the world looks pristine and new again and a freshly-fallen snow helps transcend one to a place that seems otherworldly. Its transitory nature serves to remind us to take stock of its pristine beauty, knowing it will become a memory soon. A snow globe captures that bit of magic in miniature.

SNOW  GLOBES  first appeared in the late 1800s in France. The most famous being a commemorative snow globe at the World's Fair in Paris which contained a miniature Eiffel Tower. Miniature worlds for holiday memories and nostalgic keepsakes were captured within glass along with their own snowy weather system. With just a shake, a mesmerizing, lasting collectible was born. By the 1920s the snow globe had caught on across Europe and in the United States.

WHETHER GOING by the name 'snow globe,' 'snow dome,' or 'snow shaker,' they have enchanted people for more than a century. They create a hypnotic miniaturized world that is imbued with nostalgia and remembrance. Shaking the ball and watching it snow in the world within it captures the imagination. 

SHOWN HERE  along with my small "collection" of two tree snow globes are antique ornaments to imbue a historical perspective. My favorite "globe" has a grouping of three tall evergreens and isn't a globe at all, but a column of glass in a faux birch bark base. The other is a silver winter tree in a traditionally round globe that has larger amount of snow, creating a blizzard effect that drifts down softly. I diligently photographed them in action, just as I took hundreds of photos of the Christmas snow to try and capture the magic of it all.

IT  WON'T  BE  long before all of it is just a memory again. But memories like these are the ones worth holding onto and sharing. 

SNOW MEMORIES | (Top) My two snow globes are shown with old-fashioned notebooks, ribbon and vintage ornaments. The cylindrical "globe" is from Target a few years ago and the round globe was added to my collection this past holiday season from West Elm. 

ICY PHOTO | (Above) This snowflake is one of many amazing images captured by physicist Kenneth Libbrecht who is interestingly enough originally trained as a solar astronomer. He has published several books illustrating the variety of snowflake forms, one of which I purchased back in 2005 named "The Little Book of Snowflakes." Photo © Kenneth Libbrecht by permission.

SNOW COLLAGE | (Above) That's me in the lower right corner enjoying a rare Christmas snow in Ellijay, Georgia. It was probably the most beautiful snow I've ever seen. I took quite a few photos, some of the best ones are collected here. Photo of me by Jon Chavez. 

VINTAGE DECORATIONS | (Above) Trying to evoke memory and history, I chose to photograph my snow globes atop a loose leaf notebook by John Derian Company, Inc. for Target filled with paper and an old book that has been repurposed into a newly spiral bound journal by Ex Libris Anonymous. These ornaments are of unknown provenance, but I'm almost sure the one made from bugle beads is Czechoslovakian. I buy vintage ornaments for their visual appeal, not just for their history.

SNOW-CAPPED HEMLOCK | (Above) This giant hemlock tree is deftly decorated by nature. The first clear day after the snow, the sun is peeking around the hemlock and turning the sky a beautiful pale gray/blue. 

CABIN FEVER | (Above) A friend's cabin is dwarfed by the surrounding trees. It was quite a nice place to spend Christmas this past year with Mother Nature turning the already pristine surroundings into a winter wonderland.

©2011 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Photography, collecting and styling by Darryl Moland, 
snow by Mother Nature.