family tree

A TREE HAS taken root. A family has formed. And this is already our second Christmas together. Life has been busy. And our view is constantly in motion. But, despite the turmoils of the world, we have the comfort of each other. A Christmas tree is a bright reminder of that.

MONOGRAMED CHIC | These gold-initialed ornaments form the script for a new family. J is for Juan; A is for Abella, the Bengal cat; D is for Darryl (me); T is for Tallulah (the newest addition, a rescue dog); and F is for Frida, the Ragdoll cat (who makes a blurred appearance in the top photo).

THIS TREE, in a small way, is symbolic of our new family, hung with initialed ornaments representing each of us. The wire and cardboard diamond-shaped ornaments represent a strong structure for a great future together. The tree is a Silver Tip tree, which is naturally sparse with ample space between the branches and a quirky natural shape reminiscent of the untrimmed trees you see in vintage photos. Many of the lights on the tree have crinkled metal light covers in gold and silver in various sizes to give the tree a magical glow.

ALL IN THE DETAILS | This unusual shooting star tree topper is actually a store fixture from Starbucks from last season that I convinced a manager to save for me. It worked perfectly atop this tree.

LOOKING CLOSER, this tree is topped with a multi-faceted and glittered shooting star. The tree employs a fairly neutral color scheme of glass ornaments in gold, silver, bronze, whites and greens with classic bright blue and red punctuating the mix as a nod to the traditional trees of my childhood.

FRAMEWORK GEMS | These interesting gem ornaments are made of wire and metallic cardboard. I added a tiny glass bauble to each wire-framed ornament to make them more elegant.

THE FRAMEWORK for a family starts with a bedrock of comfort, joy and love. When things are right, whatever life throws your way is tempered by knowing that you have someone there that has your back. When you feel that, you know it's the real thing.

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH | These metallic cardboard ornaments are light enough not to weigh down the branches of the tree. Even though they are made from humble foil-covered cardboard, they are quite sophisticated in appearance due the diamond shape.

WARM HEARTS are warmed even further by a beautiful tree that is thoughtfully decorated. I chose to make this one thematic in color and form, but even if your tree is a hodgepodge of family heirloom ornaments of every style and stripe, what really matters is that it conveys that magical spirit of the holidays. The symbolic memories attached to decorations give them a heirloom resonance throughout the years that is unique and meaningful to your family.

Please check out the video of the tree below (hopefully, I'll figure out how to make the resolution better and replace this one):

©2015 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland

past. present. future . . .

FROM A DISTANCE, this tree appears classically composed of antique decorations because of its traditional and old-fashioned look, but when you get closer, you'll see that all (except for a few) of the ornaments are modern, or only reproductions of vintage styles.

ALL THE REFLECTION contained in this blog has led me to here. There's no escaping the past. It's sometimes hard to live in the present. And the future doesn't always seem bright. But the string of holidays leading up to Christmas each year have a way of coalescing years of the best memories and pushing one forward into the New Year anew. Could it be 2015 already? How did this happen?

TIME AND AGAIN | This pocket watch ornament sets the tone for past, present and future.

AFTER MORE THAN a year of profound catharsis in my life, I think I've finally learned to listen to the present. To live in it. And to embrace the future with the brightest hopes and dreams. A large part of that is having someone in my life that is living a different phase of their lives, but wants to live it with me, even though I've already been through all of that (and maybe because of it). At 53 years old, I feel like I have a brand new chance for the life I have always imagined. It's amazing how much things can change in a year's time.

FLEETING MOMENTS | Life can catch you by surprise and change directions only when you are intent on listening to the smallest, quietest, but most profound moments.

IT ALL STARTED when Juan Fonseca joined me in life this past summer. I haven't shared a home with a partner in quite a long time. This forced me to restructure my life in ways I knew I needed to and provided the impetus to do it—all with someone I love dearly. This also took me away from this blog for a while. In preparation for Thanksgiving this year, when we hosted Juan's mother and stepfather, we have been reworking our home to make it ours. And, at last, Ive begun sorting through the ephemera of my past life, letting go of things I neither want or need anymore, both physically and in-turn, psychically.

SEEDING THE FUTURE | Pinecone ornaments always figure into the symbology of a tree and are present on nearly every one I decorate.

WHEN THINKING BACK on other Thanksgivings, I remember some amazingly bright spots in my life. It was Thanksgiving day in 1984 when I got the call from the art director of Southern Living magazine announcing that they would like me to join them as a staff artist. This was my career launch after college. And it has affected my life more profoundly than I could ever imagine. This job set the course of my career at that company (most of which were at another magazine it published). It was ten years of working with a warm, creative, family of friends, a large number of whom I am still in touch with. And I learned the skills that have enabled me to create this blog and give me a creative attention to detail that is lost in a quite a lot of modern publishing. I need to tell a story. I need to have resonance in what I'm doing. It's much more than a pretty picture. Publishers these days seem to only be looking at the bottom line and forgetting their real assets.—namely readers. Back then, that seemed to be the most important lifeline for magazines.

GLOBAL RESPONSE | A heirloom glittered globe spins hope for the future. Globe designed by Elliot Raffit.

AND NOW, it begins again. The past does repeat itself. The only difference is all the lessons learned during long-gone times are much more readily available and are viscerally informing my future. And emotionally, it finally feels as if the planets are aligned just right for something better than before. Besides, it was on this day in 1945 that my parents were married. Both lived until just before their 60th anniversary. I can't believe that's been almost 9 years ago. Where does the time go?

BIG PICTURE | Sometimes disparate elements combine themselves into a whole in surprising ways. This tree is a natural-cut tree grown by Cale Smith of G&S Trees Inc. in the Appalachian farms in Elk Park, North Carolina.

THIS TREE is different from a lot of the trees on this blog. Namely because it wasn't begun to be a really fussed-over tree with a cohesive theme. Then there's the full-sized realness of it. When I let go and decided to decorate the tree with regard to how life comes at you—what happened was a lot of disparate pieces coming together and making a beautiful, but imperfect whole. I honestly bought the tree bundled, with only looking at its top. That never happens. Somehow over the years, I've learned to trust my gut. but when the tree farmer said it was a natural-cut tree, that had me. I've grown quite weary of trees that have been coerced into perfect dense cones all their life. You can truly tell the difference a tree makes.

PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE | Everybody knows the story of Ebenezer Scrooge and how he finally found the Christmas spirit. This book is a Barnes & Noble special edition of The Christmas Carol, beautifully bound.

AND IN MY AMAZEMENT, that is just what is happening in my life. We already have added a new family member. We've adopted a "schnoodle", whom we have named Halston. He walked into our home from the Atlanta Humane Society as if he had always been here--even without too much protest from the two cats (Abella and Frida) that already lived here (Frida is crouched under the tree in the photo at top). 

THE PIECES FALL TOGETHER quite perfectly in their imperfection. All you have to do is have a keen eye for balance, be able to take a leap of faith, and understand; just as Ebenezer Scrooge finally did in Dicken's The Christmas Carol, that where you have been affects many more people than you can ever imagine. And what footprints we have left behind profoundly inform our steps into the future.

HERE'S WISHING everyone who reads this a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

SANTA'S BOOT | Robert Brawley's Twinkles and Treats handmade delight is front and center on the tree. A self-proclaimed Halloween Fanatic, OOAK ornaments for all seasons are available on his Etsy site.

CHILDLIKE WONDER | This kitch figurine found this past summer on the clearance table at the Savannah Urban Outfitters, when Juan and I were on our first vacation together, captures the essence of a child at Christmas and became part of our decor this year.

PRESERVING SANTA | The timeless quality of Santa's story captures new hearts and minds every season if you just choose to believe.

©2014 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland.

what's old is new . . . again

NOW THAT I'M finished with the first iteration of the book The Decorated Tree, what's next? Do I look to the future or to the past for inspiration? A lot of work has been done to create the book that a real bonafide publisher will want to buy into, but there is a lot of footwork involved in finding said publisher. But I'm happy I now have a self-published book in hand to show and tell about. Having been a designer my whole adult life, I've learned very well that even though I might be fairly articulate at telling someone what I see in my head, it's necessary for most people to literally see your design in a visual sense. You have to spell it out in the language of design, which involves type, photography, illustration and the magical elements involved in putting all of that together in a way that makes sense. Beyond just making literal sense, it also has to turn heads, as if saying "look at me!"

I'VE OFTEN SAID I feel like the blogger Julie Powell (played by Amy Adams) in the movie Julie & Julia, where Julie states "I could write a book, I have ideas." or "I am risking my well being for a deranged assignment." The original blog ran on Salon.com. I'm laughing out loud as I'm finding out her new blog is named "What Could Happen?" with the subtitle "musings from a "soiled and narcissistic whore." However, like Julie during the time of the Julia/Julia Project blog, I am currently working a day job as a graphic design contractor at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which puts me in a position not unlike Julie in the movie. I work at a government job by day and blog by night and weekends, while working my way through my ornament collection, notes and photography I've compiled (instead of cooking my way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking). The Decorated Tree book is a result of all of this.

WHAT COULD HAPPEN? Indeed! I have to say, that coming up with another tree to show so soon after finishing my book has surprised me. We are right smack in the middle of the holiday season though. I still know that even though I've created a book that I can be very proud of, this is only the beginning to finding the way to the future I envision. I need to spell it out in the visual language I'm so used to, but I also need to articulate it verbally and through the contacts I make. "What's old is new" is my mantra now, as I carry on and bring what I've created to the next level. Stay with me (and buy my book!). This should be a wild ride.

OLD & NEW | (above three photos) I found this cute wire tree at Homegoods early in the season ("handcrafted in the Philippines" is all I know about it). It had cheap gold plastic beads on the ends of each stem, but did have the really cool cardboard birdhouse ornaments glued to its branches with bright red silk thread. I took it apart and reconfigured it by adding vintage Shiny Brite® ornaments to the ends of the branches and a vintage finial tree topper. I also added the jewel-toned shatterproof ornaments (with proper metal caps) from the Jaclyn Smith Today Golden Heritage collection from Kmart. (I usually shy away from plastic ornaments because they also have cheap plastic caps. These were dressed up with beautiful metal caps). The gold krinkled wire balls were sold at Michaels as vase filler. The beautiful rusted metal door in the background is from the private collection of my friends Charlene Fisk and Maggie McBride.

OLD IS NEW | I'm always drawn to the old Shiny Brite® ornaments from my childhood, but I've been collecting the new versions now marketed by Christopher Radko. The large box are the new interpretations and the tiny box next to it is the box of old ornaments I bought that cap the branch ends on the tree above (if you look closely in the upper corner of the box, it says "a Shiny Brite® product"). I'm seeing a bawdy bright tree full of new Shiny Brite® ornaments in my future! Who knows, I might even use some colored lights (but I doubt it).

GREETINGS | I had to share my illustrator friend's gorgeous holiday card I received in the mail a few days ago. I gasped when I opened the envelope. Stanislawa Kodman is the talented artist behind it. I send my heartfelt well wishes to her and her family, as her mother just died. Stanis also designs illustrated jewelry and can be found here at her website. She can be hired professionally through her agent Alexander Pollard.

©2011 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

collecting, photography, styling and design by Darryl Moland,
card illustration by Stanislawa Kodman.

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.