By Greg Vadney and Diana Bolander of the Rahr-West Art Museum.
Thanks to the talented decorators and with support from Nicolet National Bank, Christmas in the Mansion is back!
The Rahr-West Art Museum continues to host its annualChristmas in the Mansion exhibition this holiday season, albeit under abnormal circumstances. We are undergoing construction of a mansion elevator , thus the museum modified its decorating plan to concentrate on the first floor of the historic Vilas-RahrMansion. Despite the limitations, staff and volunteer decorators maintained a commitment to fill the museum with holiday trimmings after missing out on the exhibition in 2020 due to COVID closure.
Each room of the mansion is decorated by a team of designers who inscribe an individual holiday story in the room decoration. We spoke to some of the decorators to get the stories behind their designs.
Bob Kellner and Mary Zboralski’s room theme, “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays: Even a Bird Needs a Home”finds birds and birdhouses throughout the room. Most of the birds belong to Mary, indeed, some of them belonged to her mother Maggie before her. Maggie was an avid bird lover and gardener who passed a few years ago. Bob and Mary reminisced about Maggie while decorating the room. Bob and Mary have been decorating rooms in the mansion for years, influenced by their work at a flower shop together. Bob usually creates original paintings for a Christmas in the Mansion installation. This year he has three original paintings in the room. One is done with special acrylic paint on an old window he found in his daughter’s garage attic. The paint took three weeks to cure. One of the smaller paintings Bob did especially for this room installation, is a little wall room needing a special touch. He completed it in just two days. The final painting by Bob is actually on loan from Mary, whose children commissioned it a few years ago as a Christmas gift.
Joe Cibulka and Jim Day decorated the east room with the title “The Remembrance of Christmas Past,” a nod to French novelist Marcel Proust. Most of the objects, including the stereoscope and a collection of 19th century dolls featured under the Christmas tree are from their personal collections of art and antiques. Inspired by a Victorian Christmas, Joe and Jim made sure to include candied fruit as a special Victorian Christmas treat. One table features a favorite sculpture of Joe’s of Artemisand a Stag by Royal Copenhagen. The early 1890s piece depictsthe goddess with an art deco look with stylized hair and garland on the stag. Joe acquired the sculpture at an estate sale in California when he ran an antique shop in San Francisco.
Linda Miller and Mary Jo Stangel decorated the Central gallery this year. This sister team are regular decorators for Christmas in the Mansion. Mary Jo is an active member of the Museums Friends Advisory Council and Linda is a professional decorator. They used a Santa theme and infused the design with whimsy and fun, toys and Santas throughout. The pair also used some old decorative frames with Christmas ornaments paired with lovely red fabric and pictures of Santa to create a decorative composition on the main gallery wall. Linda joked that she loves decorating for the holidays and loves the opportunity to “put a little more glitter on her head.” Museum staff can attest that she did indeed have glitter on her face when decorating!
Friends Donna Ney, Mindy Peters, and Linda Wallander decorated the mansion staircase, which this year can only be viewed from below since the second floor is closed due to construction. This presented a special challenge. Linda really wanted to do something beyond the traditional green and red decorations. Donna contributed a winter wonderland theme with mostly white and silver decorations. The results are simply stunning. Mirrored ornaments and silver snowflakes create lovely reflections that visitors walk through as they go from the Porte Cochere into the Mansion. The trio made the swags going up the stairs from an old tree they used in a previous installation.
The Rahr-West Art Museum is open Tuesdays-Fridays from 10:00 am – 4:00 pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 11:00 am – 4:00 pm. We will be closed on December 24 and 25 for the Christmas holiday. Find more information on the museum and programs at rahrwestartmuseum.org.