Wooden stars light up homes, churches as lohud's David Wilson's public art project grows
Launched as a public art project during the COVID pandemic, my Stars of Hope initiative has developed into an engaging program at two Hudson Valley churches, with parishioners making dozens of stars for the 2023 holiday season to support their ministries.
The latest workshop at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Mount Kisco in mid-November brought together participants from ages 9 to 94 to learn how to weave the wood, tie the sticks together, and string the lights. It came two weeks after members of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Staatsburg gathered in the backyard of the Rev. Michael Corrigan’s home in Hyde Park to make a slew of stars.
It’s a new direction for a project I’ve developed over the past four years that has connected family, friends, churches and historic sites throughout the Hudson Valley.
It all started during the early days of the pandemic in the summer of 2020. For years, I’d been inspired by the ubiquitous stars on homes and businesses in the Mad River Valley, the home of the White Plains Ski Club and Mad River Glen ski area.
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I made a star for the club, then thought it could brighten spirits at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in the Hyde Park hamlet of Staatsburg. That winter, five stars went up by the historic church, and others shone from porches through the village.
The project fit the times. It was a way to raise some money for the church. It stretched me into a new creative realm. And it was a way to engage with the broader community during the isolation imposed during the pandemic’s early dark days. Since then, stars have gone up at the Mills Mansion at the Staatsburg Historic Site, Jay Heritage Center in Rye, at churches in Westchester and Dutchess counties, and at dozens of homes.
This fall, I made another leap.
After years of making them mostly alone, I decided to hold workshops to share my process so we could make stars together. I now use black theatrical cord to tie the sticks, string the stars with LED bulbs, and make sure that one of the five sticks used to make the pentagram is longer than the other four so you have leverage to make the final weave.
On a warm Saturday afternoon in October, a dozen of us gathered to make stars at the Hyde Park home of Corrigan, rector of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church. There, I’d brought 100 sticks I’d gathered with the help of a father and his teenage son from a parishioner’s hardwood forest, and from the backyard woods of a friend in Mahopac.
Holding a workshop at St. Mark’s in mid-November provided another family connection: it’s the congregation that called my great-grandfather, the Rev. Epiphanius Wilson, to the Hudson Valley to lead the church from 1890 to 1898.
Laura Nisco attended the St. Mark's workshop with her daughters, Jessica and Angelina. Nisco liked working together with her church friends on the project that used natural materials to create the pentagrams.
"It connected us to the earth and the sky," she said. "The wood for the trees grounded us to the Earth while we looked to the stars up in the heavens."
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The wood for St. Mark’s came from a fallen oak at the sister’s backyard in West Hartford, the forest behind a friend's home in Cortlandt Manor, and from willow trees we pruned at Ted Raymond’s home on Guard Hill Road in Bedford on land that’s been in his family since the 1750s.
It’s my way of interpreting a symbol that’s resonated with cultures going back 5,000 years to the times of the Babylonians. The Greeks embraced the pentagram as did early Christians who saw in the five-pointed star a way to commemorate Christ’s crucifixion on the cross. New England farmers have nailed five-pointed stars to barns since the 18th century for good luck. The pentagram is on the national flags of Morocco and Ethiopia.
The Rev. Kyle Martindale, rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, learned quickly, putting together a seven-foot-high star that will shine outside the congregation’s rectory on Croton Avenue in Mount Kisco. He also gave the approval to install five stars outside the church at the corner of routes 133 and 117, joining St. Margaret’s and St, James Episcopal Church in Hyde Park with a five-star display.
Grace Episcopal Church in Millbrook will also light a Staatsburgh Star in December.
Martindale was among the participants who patiently figured out how to weave the wood into sturdy pentagrams that will hold up outdoors. He discovered, like I have, that weaving the wood can be deceptively difficult.
“The excitement and confusion as we learned to do, and redo, was what I believe to be a microcosm of our ministry at St. Mark’s,” said Martindale. “It’s a place where we can be together in joy and perseverance across all divides that threaten to overwhelm us. It’s powerful, moving, and a such a needed balm.”
In Dutchess County, St. Margaret's will have a table at the Hyde Park Merry & Bright Market at the town’s tree lighting ceremony, from 3:30 to 7 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 3. Contact St. Mark's for a star at stmarksprojects@gmail.com or stop by coffee hour in the parish hall at 11 a.m. on Sundays through Christmas.
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David McKay Wilson writes about tax issues and government accountability. Follow him on Twitter @davidmckay415 or email him at dwilson3@lohud.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: lohud columnist David Wilson's stars art project grows in Hudson Valley
