Oxford Arts and Crafts Show on Saturday

Oxford’s 41st Annual Arts and Crafts Show will take place at Oxford Center School on Saturday, November 3, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Oxford Center School is located on Route 67 in Oxford.  Admission is free and refreshments will be available.  Further information is available by calling 203 888-0230.

New to the show this year is Monica Neish of Springerle Impressions, who creates polymer clay holiday ornaments from antique wooden German cookie molds.  Ms. Neish began collecting the molds as a tribute to her German heritage and because she is a woodcarver. Springerle, she noted, are a traditional German cookie, flavored with anise and baked for holidays and special occasions.  The original springerle molds were chip carved with a reverse design and sold to European bakeries.  Many made their way to America with immigrants settling in the New World.

The molds are difficult to find and can be quite expensive, so she also uses reproductions or has copies made so as not to risk damaging the valuable originals.  In the beginning,  her collection decorated her walls, but her husband challenged Ms. Neish to go one step further and  use the molds creatively.  Her answer was her line of polymer holiday ornaments. 

Making the ornaments is a very time consuming process.  Once the ornament is formed, Ms. McNeish fires it at low temperatures in her kitchen oven on a cookie sheet.  The hardened clay is then painted with acrylics.  Finally, gold leaf is applied.  This is a three step process: the areas to be decorated are primed, the gold leaf is applied, and then the ornament is sealed so that humidity does not affect it.

Other handcrafted items featured at the Oxford Show on November 3 will be herbal creations, soaps, beeswax candles, stationery, jewelry and folk art.  Pottery, soft sculpture, hand knit baby items, homespun alpaca wool, photography, oil paintings, and totes will also be for sale.  Additional offerings include dried flowers, clocks, decorative paper boxes and handmade books, quilling, candy, hats, metal crafts and wooden ornaments.