A seasonal display in the lobby of the John M. Kelly Library at the University of St. Michael’s College is proof that the origins of Christmas traditions can spring from surprising places.
Fr. James Farge, CSB, was engaged in doctoral research in Paris in 1972 when some silkscreened wallpaper caught his eye while on a lunch-break visit to a small gallery. That December, inspired by those images on wallpaper, he tried his hand at the linoleum-cut printing process to create his own Christmas cards, and a new tradition was launched.
Today, 20 of the 35 handmade cards he has created over the past 50 years are on display in the lobby of the Kelly Library. Each card bears an image linked to an accompanying scripture passage or a line from a Christmas hymn. Some of the images are original, while others are adaptations of work of artists ranging from the English sculptor Eric Gill, the French artists Braque and Matisse, through to the Canadian artist Gerald Trottier, all duly noted in the messaging.
The process of creating the cards begins with Farge carving out his desired image from a piece of linoleum already glued on a wood block. He then rolls special black ink over what remains of the linoleum and uses a roller, or ‘paten,’ to imprint the image onto coloured wrapping paper that has been carefully selected. The resulting prints are cut out and glued onto card stock, with a handwritten message inserted below or around the image and also inside.
“The hardest part is to find the right wrapping paper because it has to have bright colours and no black lines,” he explains.
It’s a labour of love for Farge, who currently serves as Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS). Over the years, his busy career, which has included serving as the librarian at PIMS, as well as teaching at PIMS, with cross appointments to the University of Toronto’s History Department and the Centre for Mediaeval Studies, and 10 books to his credit, has sometimes kept him too busy to create a new card, given how intensive the process is, as well as the fact that the recipients’ list has at times topped 80 cards.
Included in the Kelly Library display are some of Farge’s favourites, including a colourful image of the three crowns of the Magi, as well as a brilliant silvery eclipse of the sun surrounded by lines from the classic Christmas hymn, O Holy Night.
The latter is particularly special to him, he notes, because it was created a few years after losing his mother and is a nod to a beloved family tradition from his childhood. Every Christmas day the family would gather to sing carols while his mother accompanied them on the piano. The last song was always O Holy Night. The O Holy Night card, he notes, prompted tears in the eyes of some family members that Christmas.
The unique display is located in the case next to the Kelly’s elevator and will be up until the end of the year.