Holidays on Display

Holidays on Display PDF Author: William L. Bird
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
For millions of people the world over, the annual visit to a department store to view the festive window displays and visit Santa in his winter wonderland is a treasured holiday tradition. In America, the Thanksgiving holiday is almost inconceivable without Macy's annual parade. But how did holiday traditions like this begin? Who are the behind-the-scenes magicians that conjure up this unique blend of imagination, showmanship, and salesmanship? Holidays on Display is a comprehensive overview of the art and industry of the holiday display. Author William L. Bird, Jr., traces its evolution as holiday decorations moved from shop windows to building exteriors and out into the street in the form of parade floats. In this fascinating and colorful history we are introduced to turn-of-the-century "trimmers" hiredby merchants to maintain product displays, and we marvel as advances in lighting, animation, and miniaturization lead to the incredible feats of creative self-expression practiced by today's window artists. Packed with rarely seen photographs and ephemera, Holidays on Display makes it easy to see why we have such lasting emotional attachments to animated Christmas windows, passing parades, and the ambient glow of holiday lights.

Holidays on Display

Holidays on Display PDF Author: William L. Bird
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 162

Get Book Here

Book Description
For millions of people the world over, the annual visit to a department store to view the festive window displays and visit Santa in his winter wonderland is a treasured holiday tradition. In America, the Thanksgiving holiday is almost inconceivable without Macy's annual parade. But how did holiday traditions like this begin? Who are the behind-the-scenes magicians that conjure up this unique blend of imagination, showmanship, and salesmanship? Holidays on Display is a comprehensive overview of the art and industry of the holiday display. Author William L. Bird, Jr., traces its evolution as holiday decorations moved from shop windows to building exteriors and out into the street in the form of parade floats. In this fascinating and colorful history we are introduced to turn-of-the-century "trimmers" hiredby merchants to maintain product displays, and we marvel as advances in lighting, animation, and miniaturization lead to the incredible feats of creative self-expression practiced by today's window artists. Packed with rarely seen photographs and ephemera, Holidays on Display makes it easy to see why we have such lasting emotional attachments to animated Christmas windows, passing parades, and the ambient glow of holiday lights.

Animatronics

Animatronics PDF Author: Edwin Wise
Publisher: Prompt
ISBN: 9780790612195
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Author Edwin Wise takes the reader inside his world of robotics in an innovative guide to designing, developing, and building animated displays centered around the holidays of Halloween and Christmas.

Christmas in America

Christmas in America PDF Author: Peter Guttman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510778551
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
A New Edition of Peter Guttman's Dazzling Photographic Treasury of Holiday Lights and Celebrations Nothing reminds us of the good things in life—family, friendship, food, and good cheer—more than Christmas. With stunning images and illuminating text, award-winning photographer Peter Guttman offers a dazzling overview of the wintry landscapes, traditions, ceremonies, spectacles, and pastimes of the holiday season throughout the United States. Delve into the landscapes and streetscapes of Christmas in America and you can almost smell the frosted scent of snow-covered pines, of chestnuts roasting, and of family meals being shared. In the East, we find the spirit of the season in a cozy Vermont country inn, or an “army of elves” in a Philadelphia parade, or the sweeping grace of the sugar plum fairies in the Nutcracker Suite. In the heartland, we dogsled through a crystal wilderness in Minnesota and discover blazing bonfires in Louisiana. The snowy cliffs of the Grand Canyon, steam trains weaving high amongst the Rockies, the textured pueblos of New Mexico, the almost heavenly night sky of Utah’s Monument Valley, and the indescribable glazed beauty of Yosemite reflect the West. Like the holiday season itself, Christmas in America is a treasure.

All Around the Year

All Around the Year PDF Author: Jack Santino
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252065163
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Whether they're decorating Easter trees or celebrating Wagner's birthday by playing recordings of his Ring cycle operas and incinerating a model of Valhalla on an outdoor barbecue to the closing strains of "Gotterdämerung," Americans know both how to create and how to celebrate holidays. Jack Santino's guide to such frivolity is a wonderfully readable exploration of holidays, periods of festivity, and life-cycle rituals and celebrations. Santino draws on history, anthropology, popular culture, and folklore to show the intricate relationships between holidays and the roles that celebrations and rituals play in people's lives.

Holidays on Ice

Holidays on Ice PDF Author: David Sedaris
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316073636
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
David Sedaris's beloved holiday collection is new again with six more pieces, including a never before published story. Along with such favoritesas the diaries of a Macy's elf and the annals of two very competitive families, are Sedaris's tales of tardy trick-or-treaters ("Us and Them"); the difficulties of explaining the Easter Bunny to the French ("Jesus Shaves"); what to do when you've been locked out in a snowstorm ("Let It Snow"); the puzzling Christmas traditions of other nations ("Six to Eight Black Men"); what Halloween at the medical examiner's looks like ("The Monster Mash"); and a barnyard secret Santa scheme gone awry ("Cow and Turkey"). No matter what your favorite holiday, you won't want to miss celebrating it with the author who has been called "one of the funniest writers alive" (Economist).

American Christmas

American Christmas PDF Author: Danelle Manthey
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780578491233
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
American Christmas is a new book by photographer Danelle Manthey that examines Christmas displays, and the people behind them, through the lens of American folk art. Through portraits and interviews, the book features the stories of over 40 families and individuals across 12 states. It includes text by Marlene Friis, a foreword from Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, Founder and Director of the American Visionary Art Museum and an introduction by Mark Sloan, Curator and Chief Director of the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art.Over the course of a decade, Manthey photographed, interviewed and spent time with the creators of these displays, quickly coming to recognize them as folk artists. Entirely self-taught, the creators often do not view themselves as artists, yet create visceral, site-specific installations that should be recognized for their transcendent, highly skilled craft. Many of the selected displays feature region-specific motifs as well as handmade decorations. This tendency, coupled with the traditional imagery and decorative nature of the displays, situates the work as a form of contemporary American folk art. Many of the featured individuals and families seem driven to create utopian spaces through their displays, which is a common theme among folk artists. "The truly amazing thing about these American grassroots artists, all of whom became bitten by the pine-scented Christmas bug, lies in the diversity of their motivations," explains Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, Founder and Director of the American Visionary Art Museum. Through the act of photographing the displays, Manthey enshrines them as a distinct art form. Where many would diminish the works as decorative cheer, Manthey looks beyond to reveal the innovation and commitment that grounds all great art. Along with making these themes accessible to a non-art audience, she succeeds in sharing the community and joy these works are founded on-something that is much needed in our current world.

The Dot

The Dot PDF Author: Peter H. Reynolds
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 153621809X
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
Vashti believes that she cannot draw, but her art teacher's encouragement leads her to change her mind and she goes on to encourage another student who feels the same as she had.

Consumer Rites

Consumer Rites PDF Author: Leigh Eric Schmidt
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691017211
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Reexamining the story of holidays in the United States, Leigh Schmidt shows that commercial appropriations of these occasions were actually as religious in form as they were secular. The new rituals of America's holiday bazaar offered a luxuriant merger of the holy and the profane - a heady blend of fashion and faith, merchandising and gift giving, profits and sentiments. In this richly illustrated book that captures both the blessings and ballyhoo of American holiday observances from the mid-eighteenth century through the twentieth, the author offers a reassessment of the "consumer rites" that various social critics have long decried for their spiritual emptiness and banal sentimentality.

Directory of Museums

Directory of Museums PDF Author: Kenneth Hudson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349014885
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 864

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Book Description


The Book of the Year

The Book of the Year PDF Author: Anthony F. Aveni
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195171549
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Halloween, Valentine's Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's Day - these are but a handful of modern holidays descended from the red-letter days, seasonal celebrations we have invented and reinvented over more than five millennia to meet our changing human needs. When we explore their origins, the holidays begin to reflect not only who we are but also why, through oppressed by time and thwarted by the forces of nature, we never seem to lose the will to control the future.