Folk Art in the 21st Century

One night, about ten years ago, I was wasting time on the Internet when I stumbled across an article about a family in a town close to mine who had won, for something like the tenth time, an award for the town's best Christmas light display. I figured it was worth a drive to check out this “award winning” display of lights. I wasn’t really expecting much, maybe a decorated tree or two, a bunch of light strings wrapped around the house and a few inflatables set up in the yard,. That preconception ended the moment I turned the corner onto the street mentioned in the article. It is no overstatement to say that I was stunned by what I saw. I discovered not one but two amazingly decorated houses (They are both visible in the Wright Family Display included in this submission). Each display far outstripped anything that I had imagined possible. I had no idea people would go to such lengths to celebrate the Christmas Holidays. So began this project and my ongoing search for other spectacular Christmas Light displays. These displays are an enormous amount of work to create and set up. Typically the families involved begin unpacking and setting up their displays in late October. The work then continues, on evenings and weekends, until the first of December when the lights are turned on. Some of the displays are so bright that the light from them can be seen reflecting off of clouds from miles away. As a general rule the lights are turned off and packed up early in January. The costs associated with creating and maintaining these displays are substantial. One of the home owners told me that prior to the advent of energy efficient LED’s, his electrical bill for the month of December, ran into the thousands of dollars. Another advantage of LED’s is that they can be controlled by computers which allows the displays to be synchronized with music adding another layer of cost, complexity and visual impact. This is not an art form for the faint of heart. Thank you for your time and consideration Francis Livingston.