TORONTO — In 2015, the actress Gwyneth Paltrow published a holiday gift guide on her trendy lifestyle website, Goop, that promoted, among its many items, a sort of flowing, plum-colored dreamcatcher that retailed for about $500. “A gorgeous dreamcatcher that moonlights as really pretty wall décor,” the site cooed. (The same guide offered other practical suggestions, like: a rosewood-handled truffle slicer, or, for the fitness-freak in your life, a pair of 18-karat gold dumbbells starting at $125,000.)
For those poor mortals doing their holiday shopping in the Other America, however, you’ll be glad to know that there are more feasible means of achieving really pretty wall décor — crafted with the same (if not a greater) level of TLC — and it’s just down the road.
AT THE FAR eastern edge of the little ramshackle town of Toronto, Kan. — just before you make the turn for Cross Timbers State Park — there is, barely visible from the road, a small salmon-colored house whose weathered cross-gabled roof rises above a tangled enclave of trees and shrubs. A hand-painted sign, sky blue with black serif lettering, leans against the roadside mailbox: “DREAMCATCHER’S FOR SALE.” And, in small lettering at the bottom, the instructions: “CALL 620-705-9344 or STOP BY.”
The house is the first one on a short dead-end road. The small driveway curves into a grass-and-gravel backyard. A set of rickety stairs leads steeply up to the backdoor. (The front entry is no longer in use.) The porch is crowded with a colorful accumulation of domestic bric-a-brac —furniture and appliances, packed ash trays, gardening accessories, Christmas decorations, and a sign warning visitors to beware of the cat. But this tender assault on the eyes is merely a precursor to the visual fiesta that awaits the visitor who steps inside.
“Most of the stuff in this room was decorated by me,” explains Amber Holland, waving a hand round the combination living-room/bedroom set-up she shares with her fiancé, Adam. The major items in the cramped room include: a king-sized bed with a satiny rainbow-colored quilt; a large refrigerator; a couch; a washing machine; a Christmas tree with an angel on top; a small TV; a novelty Confederate battle flag; a night stand with two Sea-Monkey tanks; six completed jigsaw puzzles used as wall art; a huge shelving unit containing a number of snowman figurines, three samurai swords, a couple of Indian dolls, two old-fashioned Busch beer cans, a make-your-own volcano science kit, a collection of hand-poured candles, a Precious Moments crèche, and dozens of old books — mostly how-to books: on cooking, gardening, conception, candle-making. There is a space heater in one corner of the room and a large fish tank with “four big fish and four little ones” in the other, a tub for laundry, and a carpeted cat-stand near the door, from which a half-Siamese cat called Honey keeps benign watch over her very good friends, the fish.
And it’s true: nearly every item in sight is at least touched by Holland’s prodigious handicraft, down to the multi-colored curtains that frame the large, west-facing window. During the day’s late hours, the window, which provides the room’s only source of natural light, casts an angled glow over Holland’s most prominent pieces of decoration: two large dreamcatchers dangling from the ceiling over the couple’s bed.
“These ones obviously aren’t for sale,” explains Holland, reaching up to touch a feather on the larger of the two. “They’re ours. This one is mine, custom-made. It’s got my class tassel” — Yates Center High School Class of 2007 — “and my rabbit’s foot that I’ve had since I was a real small thing, and the fox tail I bought through one of those Indian places. It’s where I get some of my stuff: they sell rabbit fur, fox tails, all that good stuff. Hawk feathers. I make sure to change the feathers on this one a lot since we smoke a bunch in here.”
HOLLAND made her first dreamcatcher 10 years ago. She used a steel hoop, which she bound with leather strips. She wove a net of embroidery thread, like a spider’s web, through the hoop’s center, and hung the whole thing with the customary lengths of feathers and beads.
These days, the process is more complicated. For one, Holland uses willow branches, instead of steel. It’s how the Indians did it, she says. “There are a few people around here that have willow trees near their ponds, and they’ve given me permission to go out and cut off limbs any time I need to.” Back at the house, Holland strips the branch clean and winds the tender limb around a circular object — a wine bottle, say, for a small dreamcatcher; an old coffee tin for something larger — and tightly lashes the ends of the branch together with a special waxy string. She then allows the willow to “cure” for two weeks, until the object is firm enough to form the heart of the dreamcatcher.
After she’s woven the embroidery thread through the hoop and wrapped its circumference in leather and decided on the “color scheme” for the feathers, Holland is ready to adorn the object.
Unless she is making a custom-ordered piece or one for a special occasion (she recently crafted a pink breast cancer awareness dreamcatcher), the specifics of decorating the object depend on whatever inspiration intrudes on her brain at the moment of creation. “I like to add jewels, charms, stuff like that. That way it might have more meaning for people. I recently ran out of leather, though. But I’m saving up right now to buy more.”
Holland sells around 35 dreamcatchers a year. At least half of her sales come from lake traffic, from people who stop after seeing her sign.
Holland hangs each art object — which sell for between $20 and $50, depending on size — with a small tag detailing the materials used and the hours of labor invested.
