Jennifer Sergent
Scripps Howard News Service
If there's anything noteworthy about the ornaments that hang on the White House Christmas tree, it's that you can't afford them.
The one-of-a-kind replicas of birds native to the states of the 300 artisans who made them can't be purchased; the White House laid down strict rules that the artisans could not reproduce their ornaments for sale or promotion.
But the time, labor and materials that went into each handmade bird make them worth hundreds, and even thousands, of dollars.
"There's no way that anyone could actually purchase ornaments like these to actually decorate a tree," said Phil Brown of Swannanoa, N.C., who carved two Carolina chickadees, perched on a birdhouse.
Calculating his labor and materials, Brown said he would probably list his ornament at about $400 if he were selling it.
But that's fairly cheap, compared to the intricate work of some other artists.
Metalsmith Vickie Daiello of Delaware, Ohio, spent several weeks polishing copper, carving intricate designs out of it and using it as a class project for local third graders. She tucked their names on pieces of paper into the shiny head of a screech owl (see top photo).
Inside its breast, behind the metal wings, is a tiny book crafted from a collage of the kids' own artwork. A latch in the shape of Ohio keeps the owl's wings closed.
Considering all that went into it, Daiello said she would price it at least $1,000. But, she added, "I just can't think of it in that way."
Tyrone Geter, a painter in Columbia, S.C., said he could easily charge $1,500 for the painted papier-mache replica he made of the extinct South Carolina parakeet (see bottom photo).
People who work in three dimensions all the time "would charge much more," he said, but then again, "it depends on what people would buy."
Wool weaver Joanna Gleason of Lyons, Colo., said people would never pay that much for a Christmas ornament, especially when the drug stores sells boxes of balls for five bucks.
"In America, we buy art by the yard," she said.
Gleason noted that she would probably list her own beaded wool felt hummingbird for about $150.
But she doubted it would get a buyer.
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