Well, I felt it only appropriate to feature a shop that specializes in the holiday Christmas theme. This particular shop is fairly new to Etsy, but the story behind the shop and the artist are so inspiring. These are beautiful pieces that show the heart and the soul of this artist. Love these!
As per usual, I am using the artists own words to describe what motivated these works...
Please go visit the shop at:
www.xmasballzrus.etsy.com
In this sometimes cynical world in which we live, you might think simple economics to be the reason that someone like me paints Christmas ornaments. In fact, to a degree, that is true. But bear with me. There is a story here…
My dad painted ornaments. You see, he was a frustrated artist; truly gifted and truly skilled, but frustrated by WWII and the brood of children that followed. Later in his life, though, after my mother had passed away, he began to paint again. And oddly enough, he began to paint Christmas ornaments. Each year my father would create a select number of Christmas “balls” to give as gifts to his family and friends. It always struck me that he seemed to enjoy giving them to us as much as we liked receiving them. They were beautiful! But it was more than that. It was the spirit. His spirit. The spirit of Christmas.
Years later, towards the end of his life, at a time when it was obvious that I had caught my dad’s “art bug”, I would sit with him and we would paint together. Our styles varied greatly. (Life imitates art, or is it the other way around?) He painted manger scenes and choirboys while I went more towards the wildly-colored abstract. But this wasn’t about our differences. It was about what we shared... what my father gave to me and what I tried to give back. Sure, we shared art. And we shared time. But what we really shared was love. The love of a father for his son and of a son for his father. It is this spirit that comes alive for many of us at Christmas. It is the spirit of my dad that I carry today. And it a spirit that, as I paint my ornaments, I hope to share with you.
I hope you enjoyed looking at my site. And yes, I hope you buy one of my ornaments. But even more important, I hope you felt a little bit of that loving holiday spirit and that you share it with those that matter most to you.
I hope you enjoy browsing this shop, as I did.
We had our first snowfall yesterday, and yes, it now feels like Christmas!
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