When I was a child, going to Dayton’s was everything. Remember the Daisy and Anniversary sales? Legendary. We (Mom and four sisters) looked forward to those every year. (I can still hear the television jingle for the anniversary sale!)
The beloved department store was our go-to place to shop for seasonal clothes and special gifts. I still have the porcelain egg with hand-painted violets that I purchased as a little girl for my Mom’s birthday. She kept it on her dresser … forever.
One year, my sisters and I received baby chicks at Eastertime, purchased, naturally, from Dayton’s! Another memory finds a very young me, sitting very still on a chair near a silhouette artist, who Dayton’s had hired for an appearance. Somewhere in my house is that silhouette and another one of me from a few years later—my hair had grown much longer, but my profile was still distinctively captured.
I recall standing near my grandmother’s vanity set and looking at the silhouettes of my aunts, uncles and my mother, her childhood braids and bows given their jaunty due. In a way that photographs can’t, silhouettes provide a timeless glance into a moment of someone’s life.
Maple Grove resident Caroline DeKrey is keeping the art alive with her own take as owner of Sweet Silhouette Co. Rather than using a specialty scissors, her work is digitally created. “Silhouette portrait art is currently enjoying a burst of popularity,” DeKrey says. “The simplistic nature of the black and white portraits complements a large number of popular home decor styles right now … In my opinion, there will always be a place for silhouettes in keepsake art and family memorabilia …”
Whose silhouette would you like to capture? Read more about DeKrey and her business on page 12. Read the digital edition here.
Until next time,
Renée Stewart-Hester, editor
