Christa Smith, Elizabethtown, KY

Beeswax Ornaments

Christa Smith was born in Germany and moved to America in the mid 1960s. Once in this country, she became fascinated with the cultural contributions German immigrants had made to America. After researching traditional German crafts she began creating beeswax ornaments, painting them for extra effect and using cookie molds and old gingerbread molds she collected.

The art of molding and carving beeswax into holiday ornaments is an old German tradition dating back to the sixteenth century. Before glass ornaments were popular, the Lebuchen bakers created the first beeswax ornaments by using gingerbread molds. They used honey for baking and the leftover wax from the honeycombs was used to make these unique Christmas decorations. Many German museums exhibit wax ornaments that are well over 300 years old.

German immigrants to the United States brought this tradition to Eastern Pennsylvania in the late seventeenth century. Colonial women gathered honey from the wild beehives in the surrounding woods which they used for cooking, turning the leftover beeswax into ornaments.

Works by Christa Smith can be found at The Log House Gallery, Berea, KY; Kentucky Haus, Newport, KY; True Kentucky, Glendale, KY; and the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea, Berea, KY.