Local artist contributes ornament to White House Christmas
tree
The White House Christmas tree glitters with a little bit of San
Benito County this year.
Local artist contributes ornament to White House Christmas tree
The White House Christmas tree glitters with a little bit of San Benito County this year.
The tree this year is decorated with nearly 350 hand-painted ornaments, each representing one of the national parks. Gayle Sleznick of San Juan Bautista was selected to contribute the Pinnacles National Monument globe. The ornament features scenes depicting a rock climber, ranger hiking up a trail, a walker emerging from the park’s caves, deer and wildflowers and soaring above it all, a California Condor.
She was an apt choice for the job.
“I was not only married to the park service, I was raised in it,” she said Wednesday. Sleznick knew no life but the National Park Service before she and her husband, Jim, retired to San Juan Bautista. Their last posting was to Pinnacles, where Jim served as superintendent. The couple met at Crater Lake National Park, and his career led them across the Southwest and elsewhere always landing in one of the nation’s natural gems.
“Dad was at Death Valley when I was born,” she said. “We moved on to Grand Canyon, Lake Mead and Crater Lake.”
The honor of sharing the only national park in the Monterey Bay Area with the nation through her paintings arrived unexpectedly at Sleznick’s door a few months ago.
“Eric Brunnemann, who is the superintendent, came to me last summer with this large plastic gold ball and said ‘here; you’re the only one I can think of who might know what to do with this,” Sleznick recalled.
The globe was quickly forgotten until September, when another phone call revealed it was due in Washington, D.C. by Oct. 1. Drawing from her personal memories, Sleznick used acrylic paints to create the montage of familiar monument scenes.
Sleznick’s ornament is one of 349, each completed by an artist familiar with the location depicted. All were invited to a White House reception that Sleznick and her husband attended earlier this month.
The tree was erected in the White House Blue Room, which could not hold the crowd assembled for the occasion.
Between artists and their companions and the white house decorating staff some 1,000 were on hand, Sleznick recalled.
Artists were photographed with the tree – a good thing since the Sleznicks forgot their cameras.
The group was invited to remain for an elaborate reception.
“Jim and I went to get something to eat, and we were told the First Lady would be arriving in about two minutes,” she said. “That room only held about 100 people.”
The Sleznicks were among the few on hand when she thanked the artists for their contributions.
And contributions they are. Sleznick may never see her ornament again. After the holidays, the tree will be removed and the ornaments will be placed in the Smithsonian Institution collection.
“I’m assuming that when President Bush gets his library, they’ll go in that collection,” Sleznick said.
This is not the first example of Sleznick’s work to hang in the nation’s capital. Many years ago she presented a painting to an old friend, Ron Dixon, when they were stationed at the Gila Cliff Dwellings. Dixon went on to become architect for the White House, and the painting went with him. Today, that canvas hangs at the White House Historical Association offices, she said.
To see a photo of each of the White House ornaments, direct Web browsers to http://www.whitehouse.gov/slideshow/ornamentslides.html. The Pinnacles National Monument ornament is No. 257.
