With new and repeat exhibitors, Mark Arts’ Holiday Tables is now a 4-day event
Jewelry designer Debra Navarro may call Wichita home, but the soul of her work comes from East Africa.
That’s why she’s showcasing handmade items from that region in her debut entry in Mark Arts’ “Holiday Tables: The Great Tablescape” exhibition.
Navarro’s display, called “The Journey of a Gemstone,” is one of about 25 displays that will be created by individuals, nonprofit organizations and businesses to showcase holiday home entertaining ideas. Each themed exhibit features more than just pretty place settings and table decorations and usually includes rugs, artwork, other furniture and décor items.
This year’s Holiday Tables exhibit, which is in its 56th year, will have extended hours, opening to the public on Thursday, Nov. 9, for a four-day run through Sunday, Nov. 12. In the past, the event has run from Friday through Sunday. The event is sponsored by the art education center’s Designing Women volunteer group.
For her exhibit, Navarro is paying homage to the East African tradespeople she works with to source the gemstones she uses in her customized fine jewelry designs. After watching the documentary “Sharing the Rough,” which follows the process of a gemstone from mine to market as a piece of jewelry, Navarro traveled to the region to learn more about artisanal or small-scale mining before setting up her jewelry designing business in 2015.
Her tablescape will showcase carved wooden place settings, intricate hand-made beaded jewelry and what Navarro called “the most adorable hand-sewn stuffed African animals, perfectly sized for a tabletop” that were created by the Maasai tribe. Herders from the tribe are credited with finding tanzanite while tending livestock in Tanzania in 1967.
The event also gives Navarro the opportunity to sell her jewelry locally; her pieces are generally sold through Neiman Marcus stores and online. She’ll have a booth set up in the Holiday Tables art boutique, along with about a dozen other artists. She donates part of her net proceeds to a nonprofit that supports the miners and craftspeople from the area, she said.
Navarro said it was easy coming up with the theme for her Holiday Tables display debut.
“Behind all this fancy jewelry, the people who live and work in these communities are really the shining stars.”
While Navarro is a new exhibitor this year, Amy Reep and the volunteers from Wichita’s Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Allen House have been participating in Holiday Tables since 2016. Their exhibit features furniture and decor from the house at 255 N. Roosevelt, which is now a Wichita attraction.
This year’s theme is “Intimate Thanksgiving on the Prairie: Wright Style,” and envisions how the architect and designer Wright and his wife, Olgivanna, may have decorated for the November holiday, said Reep, who is the Allen House executive director. It’s the first time the Allen House group has used a Thanksgiving theme.
Past themes have focused on other holidays, including a New Year’s Eve party, Christmas mornings with the Henry Allen family, a tea on the terrace that would have been hosted by the Elsie Allen, and a re-creation of the dining room in the Imperial Peacock Hotel in Japan, which Wright was also designing at the time the Allens hired him to design their home in 1916.
The Thanksgiving-themed table will include a Wright-designed prairie urn and weed holders to display dried floral arrangements. The Allens’ Wedgewood china will be used for the place settings.
Tickets to the Holiday Tables event, suitable for ages 8 and older, are $12 per person; hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9, through Saturday, Nov. 11, and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 12.
Three separately ticketed events are planned during the Holiday Tables exhibition: a Girls Night Out party Nov. 9, which costs $75 per person; a gala Nov. 12 that costs $125 per person; and an afternoon Santa’s Workshop for families on Nov. 12, with tickets costing $25 for ages 3-17 and $50 for ages 17 and older. The Santa’s Workshop event is new this year, replacing a holiday tea for children and adults with family-oriented activities that include toy crafting, photo opportunities with Santa and Mrs. Claus and pop-up shops.
‘Holiday Tables: The Great Tablescape’ exhibition
What: an annual fundraising event with tables and décor exhibits created by individuals, nonprofit organizations and businesses to showcase holiday home entertaining ideas, with an art boutique and bake sale shopping opportunities
When: Thursday-Sunday, Nov. 9-12; hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, noon-4 p.m. Sunday
Where: Mark Arts, 1307 N. Rock Road
Admission: $12 per person, available online or at the door; must be 8 and older
More info: 316-634-2787, markartsks.com/holiday-tables
