Christmas at the Seiberling

My first experience volunteering regularly in the community was with the Howard County Historical Society. Nine years ago I assisted the museum groundskeeper at the bank I work for. I told him about my interest in volunteering and the first event I got to help with was Christmas at the Seiberling. I helped take money for pictures with Santa during opening night and created a gingerbread house making event and competition. It was a great experience and one that allowed an outlet for my arts education.

Through the year the Seiberling Mansion serves as the Howard County Museum, but no doubt in December this museum becomes a Christmas show home for local artists and sponsors to decorate and advertise. For the first time this year, I was invited to decorate a room at the mansion. I was assigned the Glass Room, formerly living quarters, located at the rear of the house on the second floor. On display in this room are examples of glass products made in Howard County. As a current member of the Exhibits and Collections Management committees, it was important to me to not cover up or alter the displays of the museum. Instead I created my vignettes around existing features in the room.

I am a collector and designer of themed Christmas trees. It was HCHS's chair who invited me to be a decorator after she viewed pictures of my pirate themed 2014 home tree. I own a dozen trees of different sizes and colors. My current tree decoration collection themes include: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Pirates, Indiana Jones, Victorian Vampires, Kitty Cats, Teal Vintage, and Indiana University. But by far my largest and most prized tree decoration collection is my Star Wars themed collection. I have every Hallmark Star Wars ornament since 1996.

This year was the perfect year to show my Star Wars collection at the museum. I had enough ornaments to fill a 12' tree, a 7 1/2' tree, a 6' tree, and two 4' trees. In addition to the galactic decorations I assembled for the Glass Room, I created an "Imagine" handout for kids that invited them to imagine if "A Long Time Ago.." were 1890 here on Earth. It talks about natural gas and the growth of the art glass industry in Howard County using Star Wars characters and scenarios.

On December 18th volunteers and I will host a Christmas Kid's Art Night in the Elliott House next door to the museum. We will have four make stations and refreshments ready to host families looking for something inexpensive and creative to do with their kids. The event coincides with a sponsored free admission evening at the museum.

I was going to post pictures of my trees, but hey! Go to the mansion and see them...you won't be sorry! It's Amazing! 

Kokomo Perspective Mural...Coming Soon!

In early November the volunteers and I closed up our outdoor on-location shop for the winter. We were able to reach our goal of completing the under layer of the downstairs half before the temperature fell below 50 degrees. The progress so far is very eye-catching, and I cannot wait for everyone to see the final product this spring.

Volunteers paint primer on to mural during the United Way Day of Caring.

The volunteers and I will now move on to painting nine huge marine board panels for the upstairs half of the mural. The panels are cut to fit over the bricked up window forms visible on the building. Last week we moved 6 of the 9 panels from the third floor of Artworks downtown to my garage studio at home so that we may have more freedom with paint time and continue working on them this winter. The Perspective will buy the other three panels when we are ready for them. As soon as the weather breaks, we will have the finished upstairs panels hung and paint the final shading layer on the downstairs. Weather permitting, I look for this one to be finished early 2016! Big thank you for the continued support given by Dana Osburn from STAR Financial Bank, Jenni Adams and Beth Rattray from the Howard County United Way, Chad McCarter from the Kokomo Perspective, and the Kokomo Art Association. 

You can see the upstairs windows that will soon have painted panels on them here. 

That's all Folks! Finished underlayer complete just in time. See you next spring!