Yule Ramblings #14: The Retro One

This ornament is comprised of hundreds of evocative Asian paper print advertisements, folded into strips and pasted together to form a star. Individually, the ads are innocuous in content, but designed to be big, bold and lurid. Bulky text peddles instant noodles, prawn crackers and "purple perfume" laundry detergent... Technicolor hawking, I venture, at it's finest. Cunning marketers have decided that target demographics are compelled to act when blitzed with jarring, burn-your-eyes, bright hues, calling out in Vietnamese: "Buy To-day!" "Purchase OK!" and "Little Time Only!"

But together... Oh, well, that's another story entirely :) Together, the aforementioned haphazard pieces form a comprehensive work of art, a stunningly ornate and detailed five-pointed star, a kaleidoscopic mandala... to gaze upon this masterpiece is to engage in an experience.

This is my favorite Christmas tree ornament. The phone numbers on the ads are from tropical Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. So I imagine that this treasure was lovingly crafted nearby.

I envision the artist that invested her time and effort with outright precision. Did she hand select the ideal newspaper pages while conceptualizing the overall output? Did she toil over the production: bending each of the origami sections? Or did she utilize some magical machine? What did she do as she worked on this project? Hum? Daydream? Meditate? Sing Christmas carols? Watch Hallmark movies? Did she take stock in its final destination - how it would bedeck my Christmas tree? ...Or was this pentagonal diddy simply made off-season by a small child who never intended for this much thought and significance to be placed on this one ornament - a trinket that likely has 500,000 identical siblings?

These are examples of the barrage of questions I oftentimes ask.

And they are likely the reason that I am oftentimes ignored by my husband :) The star represents the illumination of night - if there were no darkness, then light would be irrelevant. (Similarly, if we were not challenged by the bad, then we wouldn't appreciate the good.) Luminous, powerful stars cut through black space throughout our Milky Way. Stars light the way, they aid us in navigating choppy waters, they call us to carry on and push forward in the direction that illuminates our purpose.

The motley color combination of this pretty Pythagorean wonder suggests variety, change, diversity - a chameleon-like nature, changing its personality and approach to suit its needs and environment. Take a particular piece, such as this, and poll spectators as to which color they see first - his/her answers will reveal quite a lot about what each particular spectator is inclined to look for.

It is said that a star is a window to the universe. So maybe, like the star above, when we focus on each individual detail, it can seem a little overwhelming. ...dare I say in a state of disarray? However, once we pull back and take in the full picture, well, it's a total work of art.

Absolute perfection. After all, as it is is how it was meant to be.