News & Events

Artist Spotlight: Valerie Kiser

Published: November 1, 2017

Scranton designer to unveil latest Globe Store-focused ornament during First Friday

CAITLIN HEANEY WEST / PUBLISHED: NOVEMBER 1, 2017

Kick off the holiday season with a piece of the past.

Scranton designer Valerie Kiser will release the latest pieces in her ornament series focusing on the Globe Store, the city’s beloved department store that closed in 1994, with a release party Friday, Nov. 3, at Lavish Body & Home, 600 Linden St., Scranton. Kiser will meet guests and sign the glass balls at the event, which runs from 6 to 9 p.m. as part of the First Friday Art Walk.

“It’s one of our favorite events of the year,” Lavish owner Lauren Woodard said. “People are so excited. People are so festive. Every year, people come in and they want to tell you their story. They want to talk to the artist.”

After Woodard and her husband, Micah, bought Lavish three years ago, they approached Kiser about creating an ornament around the Globe Store. Kiser moved to the area during the Globe’s final year in business, but like the Woodards, also transplants to Scranton, she heard many stories about holidays in the store’s heyday.

“At Christmas, it was just really magical,” Kiser said. “They did the whole tree lighting thing for the community, and they took care of their employees. And this community, they are really proud of their heritage. … (The Globe) reminds them of what Scranton was and what they hope it can be.”

Hearing her customers share their memories of the Globe at the holidays reassured her about going with a Christmas-geared design for the ornament, Kiser said.

“Good design works when it can connect on an emotional level,” she added.

Kiser tweaked the design for this year’s edition, focusing less on the Globe building and more on the Christmas trees. Lavish will sell the ornaments in two colors on Friday: a charcoal ball with an ivory-colored design, and an ivory ball with a cranberry-colored design. Kiser also will sell a third version — ivory with a black design — at the ScrantonMade Holiday Market, which will take place in the former Globe Store on Wyoming Avenue from Friday, Dec. 1, through Sunday, Dec. 3.

The ornaments cost $20 and are dated for 2017 because people have begun collecting them, Woodard said. Lavish also will sell pillows and greeting cards featuring Kiser’s original Globe Store design.

Woodard said she and her husband did not expect the ornaments to get as big of a response as they did.

“We really did it as a special little offering to our customers. … But after the first response the first year that we did it, it’s grown and grown to now being this next Friday we’re having a whole ornament release party,” she said. “We serve cocktails and Champagne, and people get their ornaments. It’s a really great event.”

Click here to read the full article on The Times-Tribune website.

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