This morning, as my family and I shared breakfast at the Tuscon ranch where we were staying, I looked up and saw this wreath displayed in a lit alcove, a place of honor:
I immediately had some thoughts, most not too charitable.
My biggest takeaway was, you gotta work with what you've got, and this ranch has lots and lots of prickly pear cacti. People in Bar Harbor, Maine make lobster trap wreaths, and folks in St. Pete, Florida fashion sand dollar wreaths. What other options would an Arizona-based wreath maker have - scorpions? (Actually, this wondering led me down a rabbit hole online, and it looks like wreaths made of chilies are very popular in the southwest, not scorpions, after all.)
That said, based on other art in nearby alcoves, I am guessing the wreath was faux prickly pear, which of course, made me wonder about how in the world one would dust it. Plus, what did the factory worker think as she attached the spines, probably "Who in the world needs pieces of faux prickly pear?"
Lastly, this wreath made me reconsider the ideal of beauty. Is beauty truly in the eye of the beholder? In this case, I am the beholder, and I have no aspirations to copy this design. Maybe beauty is in the eye of the maker, like all mamas believe their babies are beautiful. So, now, I really want to know who made this wreath. What if it was crafted by the elderly matriarch of the ranch family with knotted (and bleeding) fingers? I daresay I would find the wreath more beautiful, if that were true. If instead it was factory-made, a less burning question would be, who saw the wreath and clicked to buy it, knowing the perfect spot to hang it?
The truth is, no one else has thought about this wreath as much as I have, although a similar one is trending on Etsy right now.
This wreath is not my vibe at *all* but I'll note that whenever I've visited my folks in AZ, the decorating always seems to swing to a "more is more" vision of design. This wreath's got a major place of honor - I can think of so many other (cooler, authentic, made-by-hand, beautiful) things that deserve that special spot!
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