Special to The Day

While shopping, parties, entertaining and endless other details of the holiday season continue to mount, it’s nice to know that there’s at least one place — Old Lyme’s Florence Griswold Museum — where year after year, the peaceful, magical, qualities of the season are celebrated and you don’t have to do anything but enjoy it.

For more than a decade the museum has invited artists to paint palettes to hang on Miss Florence’s Artist Tree in the Krieble Gallery. The artists are given creative license to choose any subjects, media and materials they like with the only requirement that they use the uniform-sized wooden palettes as their templates. The response has been huge, and this year nine new palettes join the collection, bringing the total number of palettes up to 167.

David Rau, the museum’s director of education, who coordinates the exhibit every year, now divides the palettes between three trees, so people can view them up close, with the newest additions grouped together.

Russ Kramer of Mystic’s traditional winter evening scene, in which a traveler is greeted at the door of the Florence Griswold House, is among the new palettes.

“I think all of us wish we could travel back in time to enjoy Miss Florence’s support and hospitality and share inspirations with fellow artists around her table,” Kramer says. “On my palette, ‘Winter Visit,’ I imagined a weary artist after a long, chilly trip from the city, and the warm welcome he would receive into Miss Florence’s home.”

Gordon Kyle of Norwich was inspired by 40 years of memories painting and paddling on the Connecticut River to create his oil painting “Morning Light,” featuring a catboat anchored at a mooring with a bobber cleverly filling the hole in the palette.

Kyle says he’s always been “mesmerized by the way the meandering river mirrors the morning light while misting the moorings.”

Other scenes that hold special significance for their artists include “Monhegan, 2015,” by G. Remak Ramsay of New York City, of The Charles Ebert House on Maine’s Monhegan Island.

“(Ramsay) was a famous Broadway and film actor in his day and loves Monhegan Island where lots of the impressionist artists went to paint,” Rau notes. “Charles Ebert was one of the colony artists and (at one time) owned a house on Lyme Street.”

One can feel the energy and excitement of a sailing yacht race on the Long Island Sound in “At the Start” by David Bareford of Stonington.

“David does a lot of plein air painting and beautifully captures light,” Rau comments.

Taking her palette into a magical realm, Katie Scarlett Faile of New London contributed “Winter Comes to Fairyland.”

An artist/book illustrator who works in multiple mediums, Faile says,” My first love is acrylics and fairytale-themed work, so, this was a grand opportunity to paint in my favorite subject matter in my favorite medium.”

Ingrid Lavoie of Wakefield, R.I., used the German folk art tradition of scherenschnitte — paper cutting — to create the painstakingly detailed “A Tree for Miss Florence.”

“I used hearts and trees as symbols of Florence’s life,” Lavoie says. “To tell other parts of her story, I cut a spyglass and clippership to represent her (ship captain) father, and, being a cat lover, I had to include her kitties!”

On the other end of the spectrum is the simple yet elegant “Pearls for Miss Florence” by Paula Billups of Malden, Massachusetts.

“Paula painted this pearl necklace in oils in an almost Trompe l’oeil (trick the eye) style and she really worked the blue surface to get such a beautiful sheen,” Rau observes.

William Sillin of Sunderland, Mass., had fun with his palette. He turned it into “The Eye of the Beholder” quite literally, by painting a close-up of a blue eye in which the hole in the palette becomes the pupil and the landscape is reflected.

Finally, Gregory A. Bailey of Uncasville went all-out abstract with “Material Switch,” a multimedia creation layered with found glass, concrete from a house foundation, stone from his yard, wood from a shipping pallet, scrap steel and aluminum, and salvage copper.

“Greg works with existing or reclaimed materials,” Rau points out. “He uses solar power in his studio. He’s very ‘green’ and non-polluting in his artwork.” 

THE RETURN OF THE FANTASY TREES

In addition to Miss Florence’s Artist Trees, each year three artists are invited to create a Fantasy Tree — one expressionist, one tonalist and one modern — that are displayed in Miss Florence’s House.

Erica Edwards, owner of ELLE Design Studio in Chester, chose the Impressionist Tree, naming it “Strokes of Light.” She says she wanted to do something that “almost looks like it was plucked out of an impressionist painting.”

Referring specifically to a painting on the wall behind the tree, Edwards and her assistant, Eileen Umba-Neuwinger, spent weeks hand-painting muslin in watercolor, picking up the greens and purples in the painting, then ripping it, wiring it, and hanging each individual strip so they completely covered the tree. The women placed additional LED light inside the tree to create a soft glow from within.

Jayne Whittles, owner of Chalk Mercantile in Old Saybrook, decided to tackle the Tonalist Tree. She calls it “Hello from Hamburg and Belarus.”

Whittles says, “I love this room, I love these tonalist painters. And I also love the sparkle of the frames and the paintings’ luminous quality.”

She collected small pictures of paintings that she framed and covered with German glass glitter and hung on the tree along with pinecones, stars and little easels made of clothespins. Belarusian linen burlap forms the base of the tree, a garland around the tree and the tree topping — tied in a big bow with paintbrushes sticking out of it.

Whittle’s son Christopher Fox, a student at Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, helped his mother assemble the tree.

Patricia Spratt, owner of Patricia Spratt for the Home in Old Lyme, designed the Modern Tree in the Orientation Gallery. She calls it “Naturally Inspired” because that’s what it is.

When Spratt discovered the tree would be in the Orientation Gallery near the “The Sleigh Ride,” a block print by Gertrude Nason, she was enchanted and inspired by the pure simplicity of the artwork.

“I chose all natural foliage trimmed with evergreens native to this area,” Spratt says. “The colors of the print have a strong 1930s element, so I knew the tree needed that dusty teal and ecru of the era.”

Spratt achieved this effect by lightly spray-painting the entire tree a soft white.

“I see the tree as what is Modern today,” she remarks, “taking a little from the environment, using what is easily available, including the feather bird ornaments, found in my barn, waiting to come alive.”

IF YOU GO

What: “The Magic of Christmas” exhibit; plus special events and programs for all ages held in conjunction with the tree displays

Where: Florence Griswold Museum, 96 Lyme St., Old Lyme

When: Through Jan. 3; Tuesday – Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sunday, 1-5 p.m.

Info: Visit www.FlorenceGriswoldMuseum.org or call (860) 434-5542, ext. 111.