Thursday, May 2, 2024
Local artist Teresa Houston was chosen to create an ornament to represent Granbury and the rest of House District 59. The ornament will hang on the Christmas tree at the Texas capitol in Austin.
Houston was recommended by Tammy Dooley, director of Visit Granbury. The request came from Representative Shelby Slawson for the ornament to represent the 59th district.
Every year a different town is selected by the offices of the House districts. Granbury was last chosen in 2019 when artist Olivia Banz was chosen to provide the ornament for Mike Lang’s office.
Overlapping her extensive work on the Harvest Moon as president of the Granbury Arts Alliance, Houston barely had time to catch her breath after the festival before executing the ornament in time for the deadline.
When Houston received the blank, glass ornament she thought 4” seemed a fairly large ornament, but working on a round, glass surface made the space seem much smaller.
Though the Granbury courthouse provides a recognizable symbol of Granbury, Houston felt she needed some fresh imagery as the courthouse had been used previously to represent our fair town on an ornament.
“I sat down and started thinking about Granbury. I had some imagery in mind. The Brazos Motel sign, the peak. Sure enough, when I googled Granbury those are the images that came up. I also thought about this old truck they used to have in front of Whitherspoons - they had a giant Christmas tree in the back of the truck.”
Houston would use these three images to represent the town and would imply the lake with the blue she painted across the bottom. The fiery colors on the top of the ornament signify the striking sunsets over Granbury.
The ornament is finished with a sprig of greenery and ribbon.
The Christmas tree with the ornaments recognizing the House districts of Texas will be on display at the capitol from Nov. 29 until Jan. 2.
“I think we will have to go see it while it’s on display. I guess we will need to take a road trip,” shared Houston.
