Blown glass ornaments, bubble lights and nutcrackers to be on display

Gaze upon Martin George's Christmas tree and you will likely see grapes, ears of corn, bananas, pumpkins, cauliflower, even a stalk of asparagus.

Take a closer look and you'll probably see oranges, apples, carrots, lemons, limes, pears, broccoli, and yes, even a pickle.

"Now asparagus is something I thought I'd never see in an ornament," said the Muncie fiber artist, "but I like it. Traditionally, the first child to find a pickle on the tree gets an extra present. That's fun on Christmas morning."

George, who also is president of Gallery 308, has had a fetish for fruit and vegetable blown glass ornaments for about 25 years. He estimates he has several hundred in his collection.

"I've quit counting," he said. "It wasn't going to be a big collection, but it's a tie with my grandmother, who came from Germany. She had some on her tree and this is a way to remember her."

It takes two days of serious work to put up his full-size tree, which ends up being heavily covered with the menagerie of produce.

His and other Yuletide collections -- Dale Potts' bubble lights and Harold Caldwell's nutcrackers -- will be on display at Gallery 308, 308 E. Main St., from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday and also noon to 5:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and Dec. 10-13.

"It's our open Christmas card to the community," George said. "And we are celebrating our eighth anniversary. The last American folk art is collecting; Americans love to collect."

George buys mostly new ornaments, some on the Internet and others in stores. Most of them are made in Germany and eastern Europe. Sizes range from an inch to 8 to 9 inches tall.

"I've stuck my head in Christmas stores, department stores, even gardening stores looking for them," he said, noting some are from New York City, Houston, Michigan and Illinois. "I like Christopher Radko, an American, who has designs made in Germany based on old Victorian style. I don't do much vintage because it costs too much."

One of his favorites is a recent purchase on the Internet -- a coconut that is cut in half.

"Some of the newer ones -- a mango, star fruit, eggplant -- really are off the beaten path," he said. "These are things Victorians wouldn't ordinarily see when shopping for their groceries."

Still, George has added a peanut, a cornucopia holding fruits and vegetables, and a martini glass holding an olive to his blown glass ornament collection.

"I figured the martini glass was fair game because of the olive," he said with a chuckle.

Bubble light treasures

It began with his great-grandmother's silver aluminum tree passed down to him by his grandmother.

Three years ago, when Dale Potts of Muncie received it, he went online to find a color wheel.

That's when he got hooked on bubble lights.

"They remind me of Christmas lights from my childhood," he said. "They are very calming and soothing. I really treasure them and enjoy them."

He bought books that provided the history and value of bubble lights and researched Websites on the subject, like oldchristmaslights.com.

"NOMA bubble lights were first produced in mass market in the late 1940s," said Potts, a history and theory of interior design and technology instructor at Ball State University. "My mom had given me a partial set and I went online to get additional ones for the set. It was really very easy."

To date, he has about 100 sets of vintage Christmas lights.

Last year, he had a tree decorated with 1950s florescent lights and ice lights and another tree with Edison exhaust tip lights dating back to the early 1900s.

"The designs of the lights and the history behind them -- from those early ones in the 1900s to the twinkle lights of the 1960s -- are really very interesting," Potts said. "They build in value over time and bring back the happiness of Christmas I had as a child."

A nutcracker assortment

About 200 to 300 of Harold Caldwell's nutcrackers also will be on display.

The bulk of his collection was acquired beginning in the mid-1970s by his late wife, Sue, who was associate director of Ball State's School of Nursing, but he has added to it since her death.

"It's sort of to honor Sue," he said in an interview last Christmas season with The Star Press.

The finest of all in the collection, Caldwell said, were from Germany and the work of Christian Steinbach, nutcrackers representing Moses, Henry the 8th and We Three Kings of Bethlehem fame.

He even has a nutcracker of Herr Steinbach making a nutcracker, said the retired Ball State University music professor.

Among other nutcrackers Caldwell shared were a New York City firefighter that commemorates their heroics in the attacks of 9/11, a soldier from Desert Storm and master detective Sherlock Holmes. Another grouping, this one from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, included Scrooge, Marley, the ghosts of Christmas from past to future, and even Tiny Tim in his father Bob Cratchit's arms.