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Display shows cultural diversity
By LINDA M. LINONIS
villa maria, pa.
The range of sizes, materials, colors and interpretations in more than 350 Nativity scenes on display at Villa Maria Community Center reflects God’s gift of creativity to the human beings who crafted them.
“It shows the diversity ... how unique countries, cultures and communities interpret the birth of Christ,” said Juliane Arena, marketing director at Villa Maria.
From the minute visitors enter the community center, they will be engaged in the display. As visitors walk into the center, they will see some Nativity sets arranged on the stone wall. The display in the conference center is a long parade of cr ®ches that are a feast for the eyes and an inspiration for the soul.
Arena said the Nativity display is in its fifth year and has expanded to include dinners and music. Last year, she said, some 1,500 people toured the display, and more are expected this season. “Many people are so moved by the Nativity sets and their meaning,” Arena said.
The display of manger scenes includes sets from around the world and from area residents, who have collected them.
The sets are crafted from a multitude of materials — paper, wood, glass, ceramic, resin, glass, banana leaves, gourds and metal. The colors range from white to rainbow and the sizes from teeny-tiny to nearly life-size. Sisters of the Humility of Mary at Villa shared their Nativity sets in the first years of the display, and now community members contribute as well.
An eight-piece Nativity hand-carved out of a dried gourd and another of papier-m ¢ch in bright colors, both made in Peru, are among the eye-catching sets. That’s in contrast to a figure of a nearly life-size baby Jesus, the only piece left from a very old outdoor set.
A gift to Humility of Mary Major Superior Susan Schorsten is a handmade Nativity of seven pieces from Kenya crafted of banana-plant leaves.
The nuns have ties to Haiti, where some members of their order have done missionary work, and Nativity sets from that country also are in the exhibit. One is an unusual “window” effect made from a 55-gallon recycled metal drum with a red-cloth backdrop.
Sister Kathleen Coleman shared a papier-m ¢ch Nativity from Ghana, where she served.
Another set is unique in material, having been crafted from volcanic ash in the Philippines.
Sister Celine Metzger received a tiny wooden manger scene as a gift when she was in El Salvador. A triptych of the Nativity, a three-section panel hinged together by a wooden arc, was a gift to Sister Stella Schmid from a friend studying in Venice, Italy.
There’s also a Nativity set fashioned from a paper egg carton with roly-poly Nativity figures painted on eggs.
Becky Lutes of New Castle, Pa., shares a 150-piece Fisher Price toy Nativity.
Frances Ziegler of Salem has a 14-carat gold-on- porcelain Nativity set crafted by Salem artisans circa 1980.
A poignant charcoal drawing of Mary and baby Jesus was contributed by a female inmate in an Ohio prison.