Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Oh, Christmas Tree!



Christmas tree made of old vinyl records strikes a chord with residents

By Bruce R. Posten

It's one for the record books.

A nearly 14-foot-high Christmas tree made from old musical recordings adorns an art studio at the 200-acre residential development at Galen Hall Corp., South Heidelberg Township.

"We hate to throw things out, so we like to recycle everything around here," said Tom Masano, 92, company vice president, who joined Bob Wasko, Galen Hall manager, in designing and creating the holiday work of art.

They did it all in a little over a day.

Masano said the old records were lying around for years. He speculated that they were left by a former resident of one of the homes.

Masano said he had seen photographs in a newspaper of evergreens decorated with soda cans and coat hangers, so a Christmas tree made out of old 20th-century recordings didn't seem to be farfetched.

In fact, it has turned into a top hit among area residents.

"We put a slab of an oak tree on the bottom for the trunk," Masano said. "Having holes in the records made it perfect to attach the tree to the wall with pushpins."

The studio where the tree is located is actually part of an old kitchen that escaped destruction in the hotel fire at the popular South Mountain resort in the early 1960s.

The Christmas tree appears to be a very environmentally friendly thing to do, although it's mostly black with some of the records spray-painted gold, silver, red, white and blue.

And what about that red star at the top of the tree?

"We traced the star and cut it out with a small tool," Masano said.

It's really a record, but obviously no longer a round one.

SOURCE:  http://readingeagle.com/

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