Where Ladybugs Roar

Confessions and Passions of a Compulsive Writer

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Inspired by the Season


I'm not sure whether I've stated this, but I'm LDS aka Mormon. It's rare that I'll bring up a religious topic, but I mentioned my involvement with the recent nativity display. Our church set up hundreds of nativities in a room the size of a full basketball court. I did the silhouettes of the city you'll see in the background of some of these pictures. It worked out to be just a little over 100 ft of silhouettes sketched. I also helped set up seating areas and a section dedicated to pictures. Anyway, the nativities are amazing. There is a huge range of what is present, and it's all on loan from various people. It's a free event that draws in groups from all over--whether they're members of our church or not. Here are some of my favorite nativities.

Here is just an idea of how big it is--this is just a section of it--perhaps one-fifth of the entire display is visible:


I liked this one made from a log.


Here you can see the silhouettes I did:


The sign states this is from the 1930s:


This is made using nails:


This is my favorite:



The nativity in the foreground is made entirely of newspaper:


This nativity is made of husks, nuts, cobs, and other natural elements.


Penguins--gotta love penguins.


This is made of stone and from Ireland. This was probably my second favorite.



There were several made from olive trees. The husband and the husband's father are big fans of wood nativities.




I liked this glass one:



This was a wonderful experience. From a spiritual and artistic standpoint--it's unparalleled. If you ever get the chance to attend such an event, I recommend you move heaven and earth to be there. It's amazing. Anyway, it's meant long hours the last two years for me since they found out that I'm an artist that can free-hand and paint. (Last year, I did a stable for a live nativity--with painted animals on the back.) When it's all said and done, the hours are worth it. It's just for two days. In fact, it was completely gone today for church. There are few things that take that many hours that are worth two days worth of use. This is one of those things.

I hope everyone is having a good Sunday. I'll be back to writing-centric posts tomorrow.

12 comments:

  1. Your silhouette is beautiful Wendy! I love nativities - so glad you posted this.

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  2. Beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing them darling =]

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  3. Wow, that's incredible. I've never seen that many nativity sets in one place (even though we married at Christmas and were given lots of them).

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  4. Okay...the penguins a freakin' hilarious!

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  5. So cool! The penguins cracked me up!

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  6. Wow- that's an impressive collection of nativities! The penguin one was cute, but I really liked the nail one for some reason.

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  7. These were beautiful. I love nativities. The glass one is gorgeous, and the penguins are so fun.

    My grandma collects nativities and has over fifty. She will really appreciate these pictures. Thank you so much for sharing this :)

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  8. Wow! I wish my ward did this. I'm the primary president and we could maybe manage something like this for an activity. Maybe...haha. I had no idea you were LDS! Nice to know we have that in common. :)

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  9. Thanks for sharing these pictures! It's absolutely amazing how creative and inventive people can be!

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  10. Michelle, I don't think anything less than an entire Stake could be involved honestly. They have three or four people called to do this Stakewide starting the planning process in September. They get volunteers for sub-committees. I would guess typically about fifty to sixty people volunteer for set-up and pull-down. They have the YW and YM for our building help with sorting fabric and putting out lights. It's a huge process that starts Monday and goes until Thursday with some nights volunteers there until the wee hours of the morning. They're open from 11-8 on Friday and Saturday. It's a huge thing that would swallow up your life on this level. On a much smaller level, it might be "doable" be a single ward, but nothing near this level. I'll add a few more pictures--I wasn't sure if this was going to be a post that people found boring or not. I cut a few pictures that you might like.

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  11. Wendy, thank you! Yes, I have my hands full as it is. But I could suggest this to some stake leaders for sure!

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  12. Oh my goodness this was a wonderful post! I did a post about my nativities & I had no idea that an event like this was possible! What a beautiful idea! Love it much! Thanks for sharing! Merry Christmas!

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