A piece of ‘living history’ available for Yule
For the past few holiday seasons, Melanie Weise has made 100 cotton-boll angel ornaments to the delight of locals.
And each year, the Taylor resident says it will be her last, citing the hard work involved in this labor of love.
Yet like clockwork, when cotton harvesting season arrives each summer, Weise is inspired by the fluffy puffs to go out into the hot fields at local farms, handpick the bolls and turn them into something decorative representing Taylor’s past while also celebrating the season.
“I say it every year, and then when I see the cotton fields blooming, I ask (the farmers) for permission and wade out there and get more cotton bolls,” Weise said.
Supply and demand also motivate Weise to create more of the festive adornments, prompted by shoppers asking Karyn Morris, owner of the Sweet and Southern Finds shop, if she will have ornaments in stock for the holidays.
The angels are for sale each year for $6 at the shop, 519 N. Main St., starting in November.
“They’ve (the ornaments) definitely been a favorite. I feel like people would like to give them as gifts,” Morris said.
Cotton was Taylor’s top product in the town’s early days, putting Taylor on the map as “the largest inland cotton market in the world” in the 1900s, according to the Texas State Historical Association’s Handbook of Texas.
When customers buy an ornament, they can also pick up an informational card Weise creates detailing the product’s local ties.
“If, you know, someone wants a little bit of this Taylor’s living history, you can get that in one of these cotton-boll angels, sourced from Taylor cotton,” Weise said.
Moreover, Weise also produced a video highlighting cotton’s journey to showcase the farmers’ work, from harvesting to the gin to bales. She also shares how people can make their own cottonboll angel ornament.
The video can be found on a YouTube channel for her art studio, Vintage Hill Studio, at youtube.com/@vintagehillstudio.
The craftswoman began making the ornaments 20 years ago after she saw similar products in Austin a decade before that.
Production on a larger scale didn’t start until a few years ago.
“The thing I like about them (the cotton-boll angel ornaments) the most is … they represent, you know, a locally made, natural, living-history type of product that represents both Taylor and Christmas,” Weise said.
“I’m really proud of our little town and our local farmers.”
Aside from being local to the cotton-producing city, Weise also has a familial connection to the product.
Her mother’s parents came from large working families, where the children often would have to quit school to work in the cotton fields to support their relatives.
“I do have a little bit of history there with people who actually picked cotton for a living,” Weise said. “So, there’s another connection with why the cotton is kind of an important symbol for me and my family.”
