Christmas may be a children`s dream, but it`s anenvironmentalist`s nightmare. Holiday cheer generates mountains of trash, from wrapping paper to champagne bottles.
But the biggest waste problem with Christmas is the Christmas tree. Every year, North Americans chop down 34 million trees, according to ”The Recycler`s Handbook” (Earth Works Press, $4.95)-enough to cover the state of Rhode Island.
No one is saying you have to be a scrooge, but an alternative or New Age tree might be the answer this season. Who says you have to do the same thing you`ve always done? Who says a tree has to be an evergreen? Or that it has to be a tree at all?
To inspire your own craftiness, here`s how a handful of Chicago`s top interior and floral designers have interpreted their ideas of an alternative Christmas tree for 1990.
Their ”trees” range from a tribute to a fallen birch in the Plainfield tornado to a funky 5-foot cactus plant that is a salute to Southwestern style. Glorius golden tree
Jeanne Kibler, a Plainfield designer and owner of J.K. Designs, made this larger tree by winding country grapevine around a conical form and inserting
”birch branches and things I`ve gathered just out of my yard.” She wound beautiful golden French ribbon, tender, iridescent and translucent as a butterfly wing, and a little tiny wire in either side of it so it can be shaped into beautiful swirls and bows.
Set among the branches as organic ornaments are exquisite golden leaves from a redbud tree, cones and seeds, which look as if they were made by Russian jeweler Faberge, but actually were Mother Nature`s own with a little help from a spray gun and gold paint.
”I just laid these things in a cardboard box and sprayed the seeds and the leaves,” Kibler explained. ”What`s so great about a tree like this is you can do it for the springtime, or for the fall as well; you can change it for the season.”
Topiary dream tree
The base of this unique tree, a collaborative effort between megastar interior designer Richar and top floral designer Bill Heffernan, is an English ivy topiary plant inserted in a cocoa bark basket with heavy branch handles.
”I think topiary is so elegant, and it`s one way not to cut down a live tree,” said Richar, who will take the tree out to his home in the Michigan countryside, ”where it is really Christmasy.”
Such yuletide scenes are important to Richar. ”Christmas is the one time of year that all of us designers and `fancy people,` who are so zealous of always doing the right thing, the cutting-edge thing, can be a little corny about old-fashioned sentiment. We can really indulge and let loose with things like colored lights.”
The topiary tree, conceived by Richar and executed by Heffernan, is wrapped in grapevine and lavishly adorned with little Italian lights. The ornaments include German statice, Irish heather, dried and fresh roses, dried blackberry lilies, red huckleberry, wild pepperberry and pink wheat.
And there`s an added bonus, Heffernan said. ”When watered like a green plant, this tree will last indefinitely.”
Funky cactus
This 5-foot cactus Christmas tree, which looks like a Giacometti fantasy, is the creation of interior designer T.J. Harris, who is so into New Mexican art she opened Southwest Expressions at 1459 W. Webster Ave. from the spillover of her own collecting.
She started with a 5-foot-tall euphorbia cactus someone had given her as a shop-warming present and decorated it with things she sells in her shop for the amusement of her shoppers. She is going to do the very same thing with a cactus plant she has at home.
She wrapped the potted cactus with Santa Fe red chili pepper lights and an array of ornaments done by a variety of New Mexico artists.
Among them are ”tree spirit” ornaments by Sheri Brown, which are stylized versions of kachinas. Each tree spirit has been carefully researched, handcrafted and painted by the artists using designs and patterns derived from kachina dolls.
Clay folk art figures 2 and 3 inches big by Jil Gurule represent carolers singing the praises of New Mexico. German oven-baked whimsical clay cowboys, Indians, Santas, padres and angels in assorted colors and sizes are done by Louise Ferris.
The base of the Christmas tree cactus is covered with a handmade burlap tree skirt decorated with red and green satin chili peppers by Jean Miscall of New Mexico. Handcrafted nativity figures by renowned Santos (wooden saints)
carver Eulid Martinez stand at the base of the cactus.
For the birds
Gay Roberts, owner and chief designer of City Garden, whose floral centerpieces show up at many of the city`s top social events, has created this lovely organically decorated tiny tree in a pot.
”We`ve never done cut fresh trees, only artificial silk trees that we`ve decorated, or a miniature planted live tree that later can be put into a yard or garden,” she said.
This year`s rendition is an Italian stone pine, potted in a regular plastic pot that has been inserted into a lovely simple basket.
On it Roberts hung an appealing assortment of natural adornments:
miniature multicolored Indian corncobs, dried apple hearts, cinnamon sticks
(which make it smell wonderful), winterberry, little bird seed wreaths and bells, dried chili peppers for their rich maroon color, dried cranberries, dried bay leaves, German statice, dried strawflower and pepperberry.
”Everything is tied on with natural raffia. Everything on the tree in fact is natural,” Roberts said. ”After the holidays I`m going to put it out on the deck of my house in the country, so the birds and wild animals can feed from it. After it gets real real cold, I`ll take it in and keep it going until planting time in spring.”
Tasseled tree
Paul Granata, one of Chicago`s most talented young designers, made a simple but very dramatic alternative tree using corkscrew willow branches
(florists also have them, he said, but interesting ”branches by Mother Nature” can be picked up off the ground in the country).
He placed the branches in a large black ceramic vase wrapped in cheesecloth gauze and secured it with gold ribbon from a gift supply house and gold and black cording.
”We mostly used samples from this past year`s clients` projects,”
Granata said. Finally he placed ”ornaments” on the willow branches of swingy little tassels.
”That`s it; very simple.”
